


Flyover States

by doctor__idiot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bottom Dean, Canonical Character Death, First Time, M/M, Pining, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2017, Top Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 06:44:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor__idiot/pseuds/doctor__idiot
Summary: Sam's world tips on its axis after his girlfriend dies in a fire and his brother is the only thing that keeps him from drowning. Despite his every intention to hunt down the demon that killed both Jessica and his mother 22 years ago and then returning to his studies, that plan grows more and more distant.The ever-presence of Dean's care morphs into something else over time, born from the need for comfort and fueled by danger and desperation, and Sam realizes something about the both of them. But transitioning from being brothers that are just beginning to find their way around each other again to something more, something that could potentially destroy them for good, is anything but easy.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN J2 Big Bang 2017. 
> 
> The wonderful art is by the amazingly talented [badbastion](http://badbastion.livejournal.com), who has been an absolute pleasure to work with.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. Only the idea is mine.
> 
> Phew. This has been a production and a half. I think this might be the longest story I have ever _finished_. I'm not usually good at anything beyond 10k, so this was a challenge. And a long, frustrating, swear word-filled road. I tried to stick as close to the canon timeline as I could. I hope it worked out.  
>  Hugs and kisses go out to my beta [Mybaderbrainday](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mybaderbrainday/pseuds/Mybaderbrainday), who has been so patient and helpful.  
> 

 

**November**. _California._

Alright, I’ll take you home.

Dean said it so casually that Sam didn’t think much of it at first but over the course of the drive he came to the conclusion that, yes, Stanford and Palo Alto have become his home. For someone who never had a home in the sense of the word, it’s a pretty big deal.

People say it takes three years for you to really get settled in somewhere, three years until you’ve got an established group of friends, until you’ve got your house set up right, until you truly feel at home. Until you can see yourself staying in that place forever.

Sam has spent four years at Stanford but as soon as he’s out of the apartment, flames still licking up the walls, and rummaging around in the trunk of his brother’s car, there is no sliver of ‘home’ left inside of him.

Sam never had any illusions of staying in California forever but he’s got a great group of friends and he was doing well in school – ‘scary good’ as Jess called it – and … Jess.

He thought about asking her to marry him. So maybe it’s never been about Stanford at all.

The law school interview seems like a joke to him now. How could he put on a suit and show up on time and pretend that becoming a lawyer is everything he’s ever dreamed of when he _knows_ that being a lawyer doesn’t make a goddamn difference in the world. Not in the world that Sam is a part of and can’t seem to escape from.

There’s a nagging voice in the back of his mind that, to his astonishment, sounds mysteriously like Dean and it keeps repeating: “Jessica wouldn’t have wanted you to go on a crusade. She’d have wanted you to go to law school.”

Sam feels like he is going to throw up. He already did, twice, but the nausea isn’t going away.

The way people are standing around, looking at him, makes it worse. The pity in their eyes makes Sam want to curl into a ball on the ground. He is afraid to meet his brother’s eyes because Dean has always been one to wear his emotions right there on his face.

But Dean isn’t pitying him, at least it doesn’t look like it. He just looks sad, devastated and hurt on Sam’s behalf and angry, too. Probably a lot less angry than Sam is, but Sam can appreciate it all the same.

He slams the trunk of the Impala shut and, for once, Dean doesn’t protest the treatment of his car.

“We’ve got work to do.”

 

**November**. _Colorado._

The anger is like something living, dark and twisting inside of him, that Sam doesn’t know how to control.

He can’t remember the last time he was this angry. Not even when he showed John the acceptance letter from Stanford and John merely scoffed and told him in a gruff voice to either stay or stay gone.

He was furious back then, too, but able to direct it at his father. There was an outlet. Not so much now. They still don’t know what actually _happened_ to Jessica.

Hell, they still don’t know what happened to Mary _twenty-two years_ ago.

Twenty-two years. No wonder John went a little insane.

Sam imagines all these feelings inside of him, the anger, the hurt, the _helplessness_ , he imagines all of that festering over the course of twenty-two years and he just … can’t. He is so close to losing his mind already and it’s only been a week.

He doesn’t buy into what Dean is saying, either. Maybe it’s true for him, that hunting helps, that _saving_ helps, but Sam can’t imagine it being enough in the long run. He doesn’t feel proud of saving Haley and her brothers. Can barely muster up a smile goodbye for them.

All he feels – when he isn’t _aching_ – is numb.

Until he catches glimpse of Dean’s face. It’s strange, he thinks, how the rules of the bigger picture somehow never seem to apply to Dean. How he always seems to exist inside a bubble in Sam’s universe, disconnected from everything else. Even when the world comes crashing down around him, Dean never changes. Never wavers.

Sam doesn’t think he’s been this happy in his _life_ to find some grubby M &Ms on the ground. When he spotted them the bone-shattering relief that washed over him nearly knocked him into the mud. He thinks he can still feel the adrenaline coursing through him, exhaustion still a long way out.

Dean is smiling at him, just the tiniest of curves in the corner of his mouth. He looks utterly at peace with himself and the world in the driver seat, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh.

If Sam didn’t know their father is AWOL, if he didn’t know Dean wants to find him just as badly as Sam does, he would say Dean looks almost content.

 

**November**. _Wisconsin._

One of these days Sam is going to lose an eyeball with how hard he rolls them every time Dean makes a pass at the first reasonably attractive woman he comes across.

It isn’t just the fact _that_ he does it but _how_. Plumb, uncoordinated, sometimes offensive and without heed for collateral damage. Relying solely on his good looks and natural charm, which even Sam has to admit his brother has quite a lot of. The point stands.

What Sam hadn’t expected is the way Dean handled Lucas.

_Who are you and what have you done to my brother?_

He realized he’s done his brother wrong. The teasing about Dean’s ‘kids are the best’ comment came naturally, but if he thinks about it, it isn’t a surprise that Dean knows how to talk to children. Spooked and slightly outsider-ish ones in particular.

Dean may only be twenty-six but he has essentially been a parent since before he learned how to ride a bicycle.

“You, um,” Sam begins to get Dean’s attention, “You ever thought about having kids?”

Dean’s eyes flicker toward him. “Dude. I’m way too young to be thinking about that.” His brows draw together. “Is this because of Lucas?”

“I guess.” Sam shrugs. “I was just wondering, is all.”

Silence stretches between them and Sam turns his eyes back to the map in his lap. If they could just get out of these damn woods.

Dean clears his throat after another mile or so. “No, I … I haven’t thought about it. I don’t think our lives are made for having a family, you know.”

Oh, does Sam ever know. He nods curtly, acknowledging Dean’s answer.

“It’s just,” Dean continues, the nail of his thumb picking at the leather that’s wrapped around the steering wheel, “I know you were poking fun at me earlier but I do actually like kids, you know. Just because I don’t know any, don’t mean I don’t like ‘em.”

Sam looks up, head turned left, but Dean is staring straight ahead and it doesn’t look like he is going to say any more. There’s a tiny twinge in Sam’s stomach, regret and maybe guilt, too, because that sure just sounded like Dean is _disappointed_ that he doesn’t know any children.

And maybe he is, Sam has no possibility of knowing. It’s strange. Dean and he seem to be in sync most days. They fell right back into their dynamic and like Dean said about a week and a half ago, they make a great team, but some things are still off. Sam still can’t read Dean as well as he used to. Dean sometimes starts saying something but then breaks off halfway through and Sam can’t help but think that his brother is walking on eggshells around him. They often speak at the same time but they can’t finish each other’s sentences anymore.

It’s going to take some time to get used to each other again.

 

**December**. _Pennsylvania._

Dean breaks about every traffic law known to man, even more than he usually does, and they make the drive to Lehigh Valley International Airport in four and a half hours with some time to spare.

Sam is actually a little surprised they manage to pull off that exorcism mid-air. Or rather, mid-crash. But they do.

When they touch down, Dean is the first one out the door. His audible exhale as his feet find the unyielding concrete is nothing short of relieved.

Sam nudges him with his elbow. “Never get scared of anything, huh?”

Dean shoots him an acidy look but his hands are still shaking slightly and so is his voice when he spits, “Fuck you, Sam.”

He’s all defense mechanism. Sam can’t find it in himself to take offense. “Hey,” he says, nudging Dean again, their shoulders knocking together gently, “We did it.”

The crease between Dean’s eyebrows softens and there’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah.” He grins up at Sam. “Told you we make a good team.”

“Never said we don’t.” He adds, “Alright, let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.”

Dean makes a gagging noise that makes Sam laugh. To be fair, he still looks a little pale.

Sam will readily make fun of Dean any day – he feels like that’s his prerogative as the youngest – but he can’t help but be awed by Dean’s determination to get on that plane, his fear of flying be damned, purely because the only alternative would have been to stay behind and let Sam do the job on his own.

Sam’s more than just a little glad he didn’t have to but phobias are no joke. He is speaking from experience here.

He suggests, “You know what? Let’s see if we can find a bar, get you a drink.”

Dean predictably lightens up at that. “The first good idea you’ve had, little brother.”

 

**January**. _Ohio._

_You’re my brother and I’d die for you._

Dean looks at him a little strangely when Sam says it but Sam doesn’t even have to think twice about it. It’s a spur-of-the-moment admission, sure, but that doesn’t make it any less true. It isn’t exactly news, either, but maybe, judging from Dean’s expression, it needs repeating.

Dean’s quip from Lake Manitoc still resonates in his mind. _Oh god, we’re not gonna have to hug or anything, do we?_

Funny coming from a guy who can never seem to keep his limbs to himself. Not that they have ever been particularly touchy-feely but there’s a certain inevitable familiarity that comes with the lack of personal space in motel rooms and twin beds.

Sam hasn’t failed to notice that Dean is keeping his distance. As much as Dean can keep his distance since he’s never really learned how. He didn’t hug Sam hello after four years and he didn’t offer comfort the night Jessica died. To be fair, Sam probably wouldn’t have let him.

Dean still nudges his shoulder into Sam’s while walking, he still kicks at Sam’s shins underneath diner tables, and he still ruffles Sam’s hair on occasion just to be annoying. Then makes some sort of ‘shaggy dog’ joke.

He doesn’t casually put his arm around Sam’s shoulder. He doesn’t tuck Sam’s hair behind his ears like he used to when Sam was hunched over a motel room table, studying, and it had fallen into his eyes. He occasionally pats Sam’s shoulder in a ‘job well done’ gesture but he never lingers.

Maybe he just grew out of it. Sam’s stomach seems to drop a little at that thought.

The only glimpses Sam catches now of their former dynamic is when he gets hurt. Which is already too often, in Sam’s opinion, but that’s hunting for you. When Mary forced him to his knees in that warehouse, his inside felt like they were being boiled, liquified, and all of a sudden the pain was gone, leaving him gasping for air. And Dean was there, cradling Sam’s face in his hands, wiping at the blood on Sam’s cheeks with his thumb. Sam noticed the callouses on Dean’s fingers for the first time then.

Maybe they simply still haven’t found their groove. Maybe there are still too many secrets, too many years spent apart, too many different experiences. It’s weird that Dean doesn’t look any different to Sam, any older. Four years should make a difference. Should have left a mark.

Sometimes Sam thinks he can see that mark, in the way Dean’s eyes flit away occasionally, glossing over as if he’s far away all of a sudden. Sometimes Sam sees it in the opposite, in the way Dean stares right at him for just a little longer than is necessary, than is _comfortable_ , and yet Sam never manages to scrounge up the courage to ask. He doesn’t know Dean well enough anymore to ask.

The ground seems to drop out from under him when he spots the tall, pale figure, clad in a white dress, blonde hair blowing in completely calm air. Sam’s first instinct, knee-jerk reaction, is to grab Dean’s arm and tell him to look but Sam is paralyzed. Only a split-second later he realizes that what he’s seeing isn’t, couldn’t _possibly_ be real. Isn’t even a spirit. He’s seeing thing, this time for real, Jessica’s non-supernatural specter haunting him in a completely human way. Grief’s funny like that.

But she looks so tangible. Time slows down for the short moment they are driving past the street corner, the hissing of static, white noise in the background, clogging Sam’s ears. He can’t–

Dean’s palm comes down on Sam’s left thigh, heavy and warm, and Sam jumps. The static cuts out.

“You okay?”

Sam can’t answer but he can feel himself nodding and he doesn’t have to look at his brother to know his expression is pinched, eyebrows drawn tight in confusion and concern.

Maybe Sam is learning to read Dean again after all.

 

**January**. _Wyoming._

It’s the twenty-fourth of January and Sam is three sheets to the wind.

Actually, that might be understating it. They booked into a motel several hours ago and since then Sam has mixed whiskey and vodka and it’s really not a good combination. He knows that but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Y’know,” he starts and Dean looks up from whatever he’s been researching on Sam’s laptop for the past half-hour. Even through his drunken haze Sam realizes his brother is humoring him.

He can’t bring himself to care about that, either.

“Y’know,” he repeats, “’s her birthday, too.”

Instead of looking at Dean he stars at the bottle in his hands. The label is blue and blurry.

After a short silence, Dean softly asks, “Whose?” possibly contemplating whether it is a good idea to engage with Sam in his current state. Sam knows he’s pitiful, he doesn’t need his brother to baby him.

“Jess,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the blurry label as if that would make it come into focus. Everything’s out of focus really, and well, hell, if that isn’t a metaphor for his life then Sam doesn’t know what is.

He looks up and can distantly make out Dean’s features, drawn tight in confusion. Then he seems to remember which day it is. It seems easy for him to forget, he never celebrated his birthday after all, but Sam doesn’t think he could ever manage. To forget, that is. It’s seared into his brain, the two and the four on that gravestone, the month’s letters following, engraved in granite.

Dean makes a little ‘oh’ sound and it carries all the way over to Sam.

He nods, sniffs. “I always thought … might be a sign, y’know?”

“For what?”

Sam shrugs, scrubs at the label some more. The bottle isn’t empty but he doesn’t feel like drinking any more. His mouth and fingers are numb, his stomach turning. One moment, he thinks he’s going to throw up but the next Dean is kneeling in front of him, palms two points of heat on Sam’s kneecaps and he’s gazing up. For a second there, he looks incredibly young. Younger than Sam is right now. Definitely younger than Sam _feels_ right now.

But then again, that’s no achievement.

Dean asks again, “For what?” repeating himself as if he’s talking to a small child and where Sam just felt a hundred years old, just like that he feels four at most, curled up at Dean’s side, waiting to be read a bedtime story only to fall asleep halfway through.

He shakes himself a little, like a wet dog, but he drank too much as that he could clear his head. He puts the bottle of vodka down beside him on the mattress, heedless of the liquid spilling onto the bedspread.

Dean takes it wordlessly and deposits it on the floor, safe and out of reach.

Sam’s got nothing to do with his hands now. He clasps them uneasily in front of him, worrying at a tiny scab on the knuckle of his right ring finger.

“Don’ know f’r what,” he says, “Thought ’t was funny at first. But now … jus’ seems like someone’s try’na tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“Fuck ‘f I know. But she’s gone and you’re here but it’s still–still the same fuckin’ birthday, y’know. Same–same green eyes, too, y’know.”

It’s fairly obvious that Dean doesn’t, in fact, know so Sam just shrugs again. He can’t even seem to figure out his own thoughts on a good day, much less when wasted. He doesn’t blame Dean for not following.

Dean regards him for a moment before he pushes himself up. He’s only touched Sam’s knees but Sam still shivers when he loses that contact. All of a sudden, he is incredibly tired.

“You should get some sleep,” Dean says then, for once not demanding but suggesting. He is uncharacteristically soft-spoken today and Sam feels himself nodding before he realizes it.

It isn’t until a month later in St. Louis that something clicks. They came to help Zac and Becky but suddenly it’s Dean who is in danger and Sam wishes with all the intensity that he can muster that they hadn’t made the trip. Becky hugs him goodbye and it’s not her fault, none of it is – she got pretty roughed up, too, after all – but Sam stiffens anyway.

Back in the car, back on the road, Dean makes light of it, jokes about being disappointed that he won’t get to attend his own funeral and something inside Sam twists violently

 

**March**. _Iowa._

Sam doesn’t check the rearview mirror again until they’ve left the town behind. Dean’s offer to stay was surprising and sort of sweet, in that way Dean has where he never actually says anything out loud, but it isn’t what Sam wants. Lori is not what Sam needs.

He wishes he knew what he needs but he knows it’s not a girl. Even if Dean seems to think it is. Or maybe he doesn’t, maybe he’s just trying to do his damnedest to make Sam happy, to figure out what Sam needs. How can he if Sam doesn’t know, either?

It’s gone full-circle.

The sigh that leaves his mouth sounds too heavy, too weary, and Dean shoots him a look. Not particularly worried, just a check-up. He does that a lot. Look at Sam. Not in a weird way, not waiting for the other shoe to drop or with concern, isn’t waiting for Sam to blow up, to go off – like he hasn’t done that enough already.

It’s more like he wants to make sure Sam’s still there, that Sam is real and that it hasn’t all been a dream. There’s something in his eyes that’s just so damn _hopeful_ and Sam feels guilty. Because he’s wished for this to be a dream multiple times, to wake up in bed next to Jessica, surrounded by her blonde curls and her scent.

He doesn’t know how to tell his brother that this feels like an unwanted trade-off sometimes, like choosing one over the other without really being given a choice in the first place. Sam doesn’t know what– _who_ he would have picked if he had been given a choice and it’s driving him insane.

Because he wants to think that it’s Jessica, that he would have stayed with her forever, maybe get a house together and eventually have children. All the things that Dean scoffs at.

But he’s not so sure that would have been his choice in the long run. Not as long as his family is still out there. After all, he dropped everything in a matter of seconds just because his big brother asked him to. Back then, he’d thought he would be back in a couple of days, in time to make the interview, not in time to watch his girlfriend burn at the ceiling.

The choice was taken from him and he’s so angry, he is, but some days he can’t help but be a little glad, too. Because it means now he doesn’t have to make it.

 

**March**. _Oklahoma._

Even now that they are in the car and leaving Oasis Plains, Sam still feels like there are bugs crawling all over him. He’s got at least twenty bee stings and they’re itching like crazy, too. His nails find the one on the inside of his left wrist, the one that’s particularly swollen, and he digs them into it.

Dean looks over, slaps Sam’s hand away. “Stop scratching it.”

“I wasn’t scratching.”

Being mistaken for a couple felt odd. Sam forgot what that was like way back then. It didn’t happen often because usually they worked on jobs as a family and with John in the picture there really isn’t any doubt about their relationship to each other. But he and Dean don’t look much alike and, occasionally, people assume things. It’s never bothered Sam. It’s rather amusing, really.

Something in his world view shifted, back there, when Dean called him ‘honey’ and smacked his ass in front of Linda. It was clearly a joke, Dean’s way of telling him, ‘These people are weird, man,’ but it made Sam think. Not about himself or his brother necessarily but about how people see them. See Sam.

Can they see the grief? The helplessness, the anger? Do they see a lost young man? Or someone who asks a bunch of weird questions but otherwise seems like he’s got his life together?

Do they actually see a gay man in a relationship? And if so, what do they think when Dean’s head turns at every attractive women he finds?

Not that it matters. None of it _really_ matters but living four years around mere mortals made Sam susceptible to insecurities. To wondering how others perceive him. Usually, that’s the least of your worries when you’re a hunter.

He’ll stop thinking about it – stop _caring_ – eventually.

“Hey, listen,” Dean says suddenly, flicking on the windshield wipers because it’s begun to drizzle, “What I told you about dad checking up on you… Dad never told you because he didn’t want you to know. Same reason he never called. Same reason I never called. He didn’t want anything distracting you, dragging you back.”

Sam doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect an elaboration. He’s almost tempted to say ‘But you did call, that one time,’ because that is one of the things they don’t talk about. One of the things Dean doesn’t talk about.

Dean seems to know what Sam is thinking because Sam swears he can see his brother flinch, even in the twilight. Dean’s eyes flicker back and forth between Sam and the road.

“I just thought you should know. Now that you’re … back. Is all.” He clears his throat and ups the speed of the wipers. The rain is coming down more heavily now and Sam distantly wonders how long they will be able to keep going. If they are going to make the next town or if they’ll have to sleep in the car.

He can never get a good night’s sleep in the Impala. For all it’s size, it doesn’t actually have enough room to host two grown men comfortably, but that’s okay. Sam doesn’t think he actually minds that much.

 

**March**. _Kansas_.

“You should have told me, Sam.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

That’s a lie. It’s a very big deal, and judging from Dean’s expression, he’s about to call bullshit. Suddenly, Sam remembers his brother’s ‘who do you think is the hotter psychic’ comment and he is not entirely sure why he is still thinking about it.

“It’s a very big deal, Sam! For god’s sake, you knew _mom_ was still in there. Missouri didn’t even know that.” Dean’s voice cracks a little on the word ‘mom’ and something inside Sam contracts.

“I didn’t know it was her. I just had a feeling. Like you had a bad feeling back at Lake Manitoc, remember? About that little boy? It’s the same thing. These things happen.”

It doesn’t particularly look like his brother is listening to him. “That was your secret, wasn’t it, back with Bloody Mary? You dreamed about Jessica dying before it happened and that was the secret you didn’t wanna tell me.”

Sam twines his hands together in front of himself and stays silent but Dean manages just fine without his input.

“You can’t keep stuff like that from me, Sam.”

“I know you’re freaked out by this.” Sam gets up from the bed. He knows Dean hates it when he uses his height to his advantage, to tower over him, but he can’t care about what Dean hates or doesn’t hate right now. “But you know who’s got even more reason to be freaked out? _Me!_ ”

The fight goes out of Dean in an instant and it’s almost hilarious to watch, seeing him deflate, his shoulders slumping. A little disappointing, too, because Sam’s sort of been hoping for a fight. He’s vibrating with energy and he’s not sure whether it’s left-over adrenaline from fighting the poltergeist or if that’s just the way it is with him now.

The latter thought is actually a little worrying. He’s exhausted and he’s got bruises in so many places but he is still angry. Always so goddamn _angry_. If he could just figure out why that is.

“I know you do,” Dean says softly, almost carefully, dragging his thumb across his bottom lip in contemplation. The motion is vaguely mesmerizing and strangely enough, Sam can feel himself relaxing.

He swallows. “Let’s … Let’s just get out of here, please?”

“Won’t hear me complaining,” Dean agrees easily, more easily than Sam ever remembers him agreeing with anything, “If I never have to come back here, it’ll be too soon.”

Sam still can’t seem to wipe his memory clear of his brother’s haunted face when Sam told him they would have to go back to Lawrence. Sam would have given anything not to make Dean do that, go back to where it all started. Even if neither of them could ever forget, it just seems cruel to pour salt into the wound on top of it all.

But there had been the slightest chance their father would be there, and if not him then maybe that _thing_ that took Mary over twenty-two years ago. In the end, they encountered neither and he should be disappointed. But the only thing Sam can think about is how Dean’s fingers are still not entirely steady when he grabs his gun and duffel bag and locks the door on their way out.

 

**March**. _Illinois._

Sam feels sick. Sick enough that, just after they exceeded city limits, he instructs Dean to pull over. He stumbles out of the car and throws up right there on the side of the road.

Dean’s hand comes down on the back of his neck while he is still dry-heaving and he shivers.

“Jesus, Sam,” is all Dean says. No ‘Are you okay?’ because he knows Sam isn’t. Neither of them is.

Sam coughs. “I’m sorry.” He’s kneeling in the grass and the damp from the earth is seeping into his jeans, coloring his knees patchy-dark. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Dean’s voice is rough but gentle and Sam can barely hear him over the rushing in his ears.

Sam shakes his head. He is still trembling, not daring to push himself off the ground for fear that his legs won’t support him. “No.” He coughs again, wiping his mouth. “No, it’s not. I… Fuck, I _shot_ you.”

He scrambles up, nearly knocking over Dean who is standing right behind him. His hands come down hard on Dean’s shoulders. “At least let me look at your chest.” His words are tripping over one another and his fingers are already unzipping Dean’s jacket, scurrying to get under his shirt and lift it.

Dean grabs his wrists, lightning-fast. “Woah, hey, slow down.”

Sam swears Dean’s fingers are shaking, too, but that could just be Sam radiating. He tries to twist out of the grip. “No, let me–“

“Sam,” Dean says, more sternly, “I’m fine. I am. Was just rock salt. Okay?”

Sam shakes his head. It begins to rain and his hair slowly soaks up the water coming down, sticking to his forehead and cheeks. “I can’t believe–How can you be so calm about this? You gave me your gun and–and if it hadn’t been empty–”

Dean cuts him off. “Come on, how stupid do you think I am?”

Sam wants to cry, he really does. As if he’s still six years old. He thinks he might get away with it, too, as long as he does it while it’s still raining. His clothes are beginning to cling to his skin and Dean is looking at him with pleading eyes.

Oh, right, he’s still got his fingers fisted in Dean’s shirt front. Reluctantly and with more effort that it should take, he lets go.

Dean’s face is drawn tight and he, too, slowly lets go of Sam. “You gonna be alright?”

“God.” A laugh spills out of Sam, like a punch but completely devoid of humor. “You’re asking _me_?”

Dean zips his jacket back up, shivering in the rain. “Not a big deal, Sam. You weren’t exactly … you.”

Sam shakes his head again because that’s all he seems to be capable of and they eventually get back into the car. They’re both dripping wet by the time they do. Dean mutters something about the upholstery but Sam isn’t listening.

“I don’t hate you,” he says, still shivering. From the rain, the cold, throwing up, or something else entirely, he doesn’t know. “I could never–You’re _wrong_.”

He needs Dean to know that. More than he needs to breathe.

Maybe there’s something in his face to convey that message because, after a moment of them staring at each other in silence, Dean slowly nods, says, “Okay, Sammy,” and there is no sarcasm in his voice.

Sam wants to tell him so much more. That he doesn’t blame him for anything, that leaving for Stanford didn’t have anything to do with him, that Sam missed him like crazy during those four years, and that he still had nightmares even when he had Jess lying next to him. That he never has nightmares when he sleeps in the same room as Dean.

He slides lower in his seat and Dean starts the engine, pulling back out onto the road.

 

**April**. _Indiana._

“You sure you don’t want me to drop you off somewhere?”

When Sam turns his head to the left, there’s that tiny smile hiding in the corner of Dean’s mouth and it seems genuine even if his hands are tense on the steering wheel.

“Do you _want_ me to leave?”

Dean actually physically recoils. “Hell, no! I just thought–” His eyes flicker between Sam and the road, back and forth, back and forth. “I just don’t want you to stay because you think you have to. Because you think I can’t handle myself. I would’a found a way out.”

“I know.” If there’s one thing Sam’s sure of, even if the world is crashing and burning around him, it’s Dean’s resourcefulness. “I want to find dad, find that _demon_. But I think we have a better chance at … everything, really, if we stick together.”

Dean’s posture is stiff, too controlled, and Sam thinks that if he reached a hand over right this moment, he could feel the tension simmering beneath the surface of Dean’s skin.

“Sam, listen. I meant what I said, I want you to have your own life. I know I preach ‘family above anything’ but you have no obligation to me.”

_Yes, I do. You’ve always been there when I needed you. And today, I nearly wasn’t there when you needed me. Never again._

“No, you listen,” Sam says with newly found vigor, “It’s you and me now, we’re going to see this through. This _is_ my life now. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t wanna be.”

“I bet.”

“And we’re going to find dad, you know that, right?”

Dean shoots him a look but he turns back to the road too quickly for Sam to get a read on his expression. He nods curtly, wordlessly, but his hands on the wheel have relaxed slightly.

They pass the next couple of mile markers in silence until Dean suddenly chuckles, adjusts his grip on the leather. “You know, I think that Emily chick kinda had a crush on me. Saved her life after all.”

“Technically, _I_ saved her life. Saved _both_ your lives.”

That tiny crooked smile again. “Alright, hotshot. Either way, you show up and suddenly she’s all nice and proper, handing me food containers for the road, reminding me to tell my _boyfriend_ thanks also.”

For the life of him Sam can’t figure out why his stomach gives a little flip at the word ‘boyfriend’. He should really be used to people assuming things about Dean and him by now.

He says slowly, “Sorry for cockblocking you, I guess. But you did call me ‘your boy’ after all.”

Dean laughs and Sam looks over in surprise. He doesn’t remember the last time Dean laughed like that. Not a chuckle, not an amused snort, actual out-loud laughter. It makes him smile despite himself, his mouth stretching wider the longer he stares at Dean’s flashing white teeth.

“Well,” Dean shrugs, still grinning, “You are.”

The way he says it sounds so natural and Sam can’t get a read on his face. He makes light of it, “You sure you don’t want me to check out that shiner?” pointing his finger in the general direction of Dean’s left eye, “Make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

Dean jabs him in the ribs, pointed elbow slicing through the empty space between them and Sam makes a noise that’s halfway between a laugh and a groan. He grabs his side, palm right over the spot where Dean hit him, holding it until long after it stops aching.

 

**April**. _Nebraska._

Sam is a hypocrite. He knows this but he can’t bring himself to care.

“I didn’t know,” he says and looks into Dean’s distraught face. Distraught at the thought of trading one life for another, of some poor bastard dying from the heart attack that was meant for him. Sam can see his brother is utterly devastated, blames Sam because Sam should have _known_.

To be honest, Sam didn’t even look properly. To be honest, he jumped at the first chance to save Dean’s life. To be honest, he doesn’t care that someone else, someone he doesn’t know, died because of it.

Sam hates himself sometimes but it’s okay because all that matters is that Dean is here, whole and healthy, not sick in some goddamn hospital bed. A fucking heart attack, who would have thought?

He kind of wants to tell his brother how he feels about all of this. He’s said that he’s sorry about a dozen times already and he means it but only the part where he’s sorry that Dean is upset.

He can still see the white of the hospital walls when he closes his eyes. Can still see Dean in his too-big hoodie, moving gingerly, pale face and shaking hands. It’s been three days but he is still reeling and now _he’s_ the one who keeps looking over to check that Dean is still there, alive and annoying as ever, playing his music way too loud, singing along even louder until Sam doesn’t know whether to yell at him or burst out laughing.

It’s a strange feeling. To know that technically Dean’s time had been up and he was given a second chance, leaving the consequences of that chance aside for a moment. Sam vaguely feels like he has been given a second chance, too, to do better, to _be_ better. It’s corny and clichéd as hell but he realizes he hasn’t appreciated Dean enough.

To think that just a few weeks ago, he was ready to leave, to make his way to California on his own and leave his brother to fend for himself… His stomach rolls when he thinks about not being there when something happens to Dean because something always happens sooner or later. Dean is always the first through the door, guns blazing, shoot first, ask questions later, with no sense for self-preservation.

Sam hates that he can’t tell whether that’s a new development or not. In any case, he knows now that he’s not going anywhere. Not before they find their father. Not before Sam knows Dean is with someone who will keep him safe.

Sam isn’t sure he will ever be able to stop worrying, so maybe he’ll just have to stay. For good.

The thought doesn’t even scare him that much anymore. Maybe it doesn’t scare him at all.

 

**April**. _Missouri._

“You know, if you wanna stay, I’m sure we can find a way–“

“Just leave it, Sam.”

Despite Missouri’s rather mild climate it’s freezing outside and if Dean wasn’t already so tightly strung Sam would bitch at him for rolling down his window and letting in the cold air.

“Dean, I mean it. She–“

Dean cuts him off again, “So do I, Sam.”

“But you–“

“ _No._ ” The continuous interrupting is making Sam grind his teeth together but Dean’s eyes are blazing when he turns them on Sam and Sam keeps his mouth shut.

“Listen to me carefully because I’m only going to say this once,” he says in that too-slow, pretend-calm way of his, “I don’t wanna stay. Whatever Cassie and I had, it’s over. We didn’t work then and we wouldn’t work now. I’m not … in love with her. Maybe I was back then, maybe I never was, I don’t know. It’s really not that big a deal.”

Sam somehow doesn’t think that’s all there is to it but Dean sounds genuine, so he decides to let it drop. He isn’t sure why Cassie rattled him as much as she did. There’s so much he still doesn’t know about Dean, about those four years. It is obvious that Dean didn’t put his life on hold while Sam was at Stanford, and why should he?

Sometimes Sam can’t believe his own self-centeredness. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He is honestly curious, he wants to know what Dean did during that time, what happened to him. Whether he was happy.

Sam can very well answer that last one. It’s astounding how he can still seem to find yet another, lower level of self-loathing.

“Hey,” he says quietly, “Any other ‘old friends’ I should know about?”

As soon as he’s said it, he winces. _Why don’t you dial it up another notch, Winchester?_

Dean shoots him a sour look and he finally rolls up the window, flicks on the radio. “The fuck’s with you, man?”

More than anything, Sam wishes he knew.

 

**May**. _Michigan._

“You’re not freaked out by this?”

Sam is only asking because _he_ is, he really fucking is, and Dean seems his ever-unfazed self. Usually it helps, helps to calm, to anchor, but right now it’s riling Sam up even more. Because he doesn’t know what’s going on and he is _scared_. Of himself. Of what is happening to him.

Dean’s expression is pinched and he looks angry for a moment – Sam has no clue what his brother could possibly be angry about right now – but soon his shoulders fall and he sighs.

“I can’t say I’m not worried. But we’re going to figure it out, you’ve gotta believe me, man.”

Sam does. Or at least he thinks he does. He wants to anyway.

He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. Driving the Impala is still unfamiliar to him and, frankly, he is surprised Dean even lets him. It’s easier to share the driving, of course, but as much as Sam shifts around, he never manages to get completely comfortable in the Dean-shaped imprint on the driver’s side.

“Sam, are you listening to me?”

He replies automatically, “Yeah, I hear you.”

Dean doesn’t complain when he presses the gas a little harder to put as much space between them and Saginaw as possible. Sam wants to figure out what kind of connection there is between Max and him, other than that their mothers died in the same gruesome way. Other than that they both somehow seemed to have become part of the supernatural world instead of just skating the surface of it.

He wants to know how the hell he moved that huge cabinet against the closet door with his fucking _mind_.

When he looks over at Dean now, he is instantly transported back to that vision, Dean’s lifeless body on the floor, bleeding from a bullet wound between his eyes. Sam curls his fingers into a fist against his leg to try to stop them from trembling.

At Stanford he had countless nightmares of Dean dying on the job, dying while Sam isn’t there to cover his back, but those were dreams. They felt like dreams, growing distant as soon as you wake up.

Sam still sees it now, bright as day, and it isn’t fading.

 

**May**. _Minnesota._

Sam takes the steps leading up onto the porch in one giant leap. He makes it to the living room just in time to see Dean barreling down the stairs at full speed, heading right for him.

Sam braces himself, plants his feet, ready for an attack even if it’s Dean but before he can prepare himself for the impact, Dean’s already got his arms locked tight around Sam’s shoulders, face pressing into the crook of Sam’s neck, and Sam freezes.

Dean smells like coppery blood and burned flesh and dust. Sam imagines he himself doesn’t smell too great, either, sweat and dirt mingling, desperate for a shower. But it doesn’t matter because beneath all of that, Dean still smells like Sam’s big brother and Sam’s arms come around Dean’s back naturally.

“Jesus,” Dean breathes, “They fucking made me choose. Thought you were dead.”

Sam’s stomach seizes and his arms tighten around his brother on their own accord. His cheek is pressed against the side of Dean’s head, the tips of his hair tickling Sam’s skin, grounding him a little.

Funnily enough, the thing he notices immediately is the unfamiliarity of being taller than Dean. The last time Dean had his arms around Sam like this Sam was barely eighteen and still a few inches shorter, their heights leveled. It puts him off more than it should.

It takes him a while to notice that he is shaking. Or maybe Dean is, he can’t quite tell, it’s all one and the same.

It’s probably the longest hug Sam’s ever been involved in but it still feels like it’s over in a flash when Dean lets him go. He pulls back, leaving Sam to shiver slightly in his thin T-shirt, and their eyes meet. For all of one insane, ridiculous moment it looks like Dean is going to kiss Sam.

The thought in itself is hilarious and Sam must be delirious from adrenaline and not eating for close to twenty-four hours. Then the connection breaks, Dean turns away, and the world slams back into focus.

The sheriff looks at them a little like she wants to throw them in jail just for bringing this down on her and a little like she wants to hug them. Sam’s not sure he wants any more people hugging him today. He still feels raw.

She nods at them in thanks through her tears and Sam has to work hard not to let her grief affect him because he thinks it might bring him to his knees. Things have just been hitting a little too close to home recently.

 

**June**. _Illinois._

Sam starts to buy a clue in Chicago. It’s not that he is stupid but sometimes, on occasion, he can be a little thick.

Okay, a _lot_ thick. No LSAT score’s ever changing that.

Dean’s outburst floors him a little and he says all the wrong things. He can see it in Dean’s eyes, the darkness that clouds them when Sam admits that, yes, he does want to go back to school eventually. If it was anyone else, he would say Dean looks two seconds away from crying.

What Sam doesn’t tell Dean is that he still doesn’t know what he wants. There’s still all this anger inside him and he’s slowly beginning to suspect that it’s not all about finding that demon, about getting revenge.

It’s difficult to describe, all he knows is that he feels different– _is_ different than he was seven months ago. And it doesn’t just have to do with Jessica burning at the ceiling, it’s everything else. Even if he went back to school, and that’s a big _if_ , he is not sure he could make it work.

It’s not like he didn’t know what’s out there before. It’s not like he didn’t know Dean and John were fighting for their lives on a regular basis. Sometimes he wonders how he was able to leave them to fend for themselves. How he could ever have been that selfish.

It was easy to ignore with Jessica around, and maybe that’s the real reason Sam never told her about his past. There were moment where he came close, where he wanted to, but maybe he never actually followed through because she was his anchor to the world of the simple people. The normal, the unaware people, and god, it was bliss to be surrounded by that ignorance.

Sam misses it so much sometimes it physically hurts. But he’s dealing. It keeps fading. It all seems like a different life to him now.

Then their father shows up in their motel room and it all goes to hell.

Sam is over the moon, he really is. To be honest, up to this point he wasn’t entirely sure John’s even still alive. He is glad to see him. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to rant at him, maybe take a swing at him, scream into his face, 'Where the fuck were you when we needed you?!'

 _Dean nearly died. Twice, actually, and you didn’t even fucking call! What if I hadn’t been there, what if I hadn’t found a way to help him, what would you have done? He can joke about getting the extra cookie for being a good little soldier all he wants but you still don’t actually_ see _him, do you?_

He doesn’t say any of those things. Just lets his father crush him in a hug and it’s comforting but it’s still not what he needs. He catches a glimpse of Dean over John’s shoulder and there’s that tiny smile again, the one Sam still can’t place and it’s driving him slowly insane.

Dean is Jessica’s counterpart in many ways and it’s not that Sam has never noticed that but it just all of a sudden seems very relevant when he realizes that the reason he doesn’t yell at John is because Dean is looking at him with that strange sense of content. His smooth features are a stark contrast to the bleeding gash on his forehead and he’s still smiling that stupid smile.

As if all he’s ever wanted is to get the three of them in one place again. Maybe it is, he practically said as much. Maybe Sam never made enough of an effort.

 

**June**. _Texas._

The pranks are stupid and childish but, hell, if it doesn’t feel good to laugh.

When Dean says ‘Truce for the next hundred miles’ he means ‘You better start watching your ass again in eighty, little brother’. He knows that Sam knows this, too, so Sam prepares to be punked halfway between Dallas and Wichita Falls.

Nothing happens. Route 287 turns into I-44, the border along the Red River comes and goes, and Sam is getting restless.

“We gonna look for dad?” he asks quietly, watching the other cars, slow as molasses exiting the city.

Dean is drumming nonsensical patterns on the steering wheel, out of rhythm with the soft rock coming from the radio. He seems to be in a surprisingly good mood, given how much he despises driving in rush hour traffic.

_She’s not made for stop-and-go, Sammy, she needs open roads, not a turn for miles, you know? There’s a reason I prefer driving at night._

He looks over at Sam then, hair mussed from the wind blowing in the open window. It isn’t quite summer yet but Texas is stifling even in June.

“No,” he says and that’s that, no explanation needed. Sam nods his head but Dean’s eyes are already trained front again. Instead of cursing under his breath like he usually does when he is forced to drive anywhere below the allowed speed limit due to traffic, he is _whistling._

Quietly and not in tune with the radio, but nonetheless.

Sam knows he is staring. He can’t help it. It’s not just Dean’s uncharacteristically cheery mood, it’s everything. It’s the sun hitting the windscreen at an angle, illuminating only half of Dean’s face, getting tangled in his long eyelashes. The freckles around his nose he hates so much have begun to show, his skin turning more ocher with the sunshine of the late spring days.

It isn’t a revelation that Dean is attractive. Gorgeous even. Sam’s always known that. They didn’t exactly inherit the worst of genes. But it’s moments like these that it becomes sort of painfully obvious.

Dean would kill him with his bare hands if he even suspected what is going on in Sam’s head. God help the poor bastard who ever dares to call him ‘beautiful’.

Sometimes Dean can be ridiculously unaware. Sure, he constantly uses his good looks to charm and entice, to get what he wants, and says things like ‘Not just a pretty face, Sam’ but he doesn’t seem to grasp the full extent of it. He constantly sells himself short.

Unless he makes a conscious effort, his personality isn’t usually one people are instantly enamored with. He is abrasive, scowls a lot, always chews with his mouth open, and he doesn’t have a filter. Sam can see how that could put a crimp in things.

But Sam knows better. He knows Dean genuinely likes the leather jacket he wears but his deep voice and the tough-guy attitude are an act. He is an exceptional hunter, and maybe it’s what he was born to do, but he’s just as much of a family man, if not more. He is soft-spoken around children and respectful around women, if sometimes a little forward. And he isn’t as closed-off as he seems, not at all.

Actually, even if he never says anything outright, he’s a pretty open book. To Sam at least. Most of the time. He wonders sometimes what other people see when they look at Dean, spend time around him. Do they see a capable guy who’s a bit of a jerk? A man who is undyingly loyal to both his family and his cause?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Dean says curiously, jolting Sam out of his musings. He blinks away the haze to see Dean looking at him, mouth crinkling in confused amusement.

“Uh.”

“Very eloquent.”

Sam reaches over to swat his brother’s thigh, natural as ever. The distance between them has evaporated over the past few months. Stanford, Jessica, it all seemed a bit like a dream to Sam now. Can’t even remember what it felt like to sit in class and listen to the professor speak instead of in Dean’s car, sixties music from the old speakers serving as a constant background against the whirring of the engine and the rush of the wind.

 

**June**. _Wisconsin._

“You think we’re gonna see him again? Think he grows up to be a hunter with what he knows now?”

Dean tilts his head, makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Not if he’s smart.”

“Are you saying it’s not the best career in the world? I’m shocked.” Sam is stuffing his things into his duffel bag without folding them. He can’t wait to get the hell out of Dodge. Or Fitchburg, for that matter.

“It’s not a career, it’s our life. Now, I know I’m not good for anything else. But that doesn’t mean I want a young boy to grow up to hunt monsters and put his life on the line.”

“Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“What things?” Dean shoulders his own bag, grabbing the keys to the car to go throw it into the trunk.

“That you’re not good for anything other than hunting. Why are you so convinced that you’re stupid and useless when you’re anything but?”

Dean scowls at him. “I’m not stupid or useless. Hunting requires lots of different skills. Probably more than the average field.”

“Yes, _I_ know that. Do you?”

The question hangs in the air between them but it doesn’t look like Dean is going to answer. His mouth curls downward and he disappears out the door before Sam can say anything else.

If Sam didn’t know where Dean’s insecurities stem from, if he didn’t know why Dean has such a low opinion of himself, he wouldn’t even bother.

Dean slams the door when he comes back into the room, looking impatient, and Sam zips up his luggage.

They say goodbye to Michael and his mom who are on the way to the hospital and then Dean steers the Impala out of the parking lot and onto Main Street.

“You gotta know it wasn’t your fault. If it was anyone’s, it was dad’s for leaving you alone with me.”

Sam jumps when Dean’s palm hits the steering wheel, hard, and the car swerves. “Stop blaming dad!”

Sam sets his teeth, enamel creaking, grinding, and holds his tongue. For all of ten seconds.

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” he hisses, “Why do you keep defending him?”

“Because it was my job to–”

“Bullshit it was!”

“Sam, do you still blame yourself for Jessica’s death?”

Sam feels winded. He gasps, “That’s a low blow, Dean.”

Dean scoffs at him. His eyes blazing, hands white-knuckling it on the steering wheel. “I know you do, so don’t act all high and mighty.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Jessica. You were a fucking _kid_.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“Oh, and that means we’re not gonna?”

“Damn right that’s what it means.” Dean dials up the radio. “Go the fuck to sleep, Sam.”

“Music’s too loud,” Sam says, spit-fire, just to be a brat. He reminds himself to cut his brother some slack but damn if it isn’t hard sometimes.

“Alright,” he acquiesces, “I’ll shut up if you listen to one more thing. Don’t say anything, just listen.”

“For god’s sake, what is it?” Dean grits the words through his teeth. His jaw has to be hurting with how hard he is clenching it.

“You’re not stupid, you’re brilliant.”

Dean opens his mouth but Sam is faster, digging the finger nails of his left hand into Dean’s thigh through his jeans. Dean makes a small, pained noise and clamps his mouth shut.

“You made a mistake. You were young, these things happen. We got her now, Dean, she’s dead. And we’re out here, killing every evil thing like her we can find. That has to count for something.”

Dean mutters, “Don’t make up for nothing,” under his breath but it’s quiet enough that Sam can ignore it.

“Dad was gone so much and there was no one but you to look out for me. And I’m still here. Know what that means?”

Dean’s eyebrow quirks, his eyes flickering to the side. “What?”

“Means you did a good job. Still are.”

Dean nods, more to himself than in acknowledgement of what Sam is saying. Sam can only pray that some of what he is saying is penetrating his brother’s thick, stubborn skull.

He asks, “You with me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m with you.” Dean shoots him another one of those sideward glances, then changes the station to one where a softer song is playing. “Enough with the wedding vows. Get some sleep. You’re gonna have to drive later.”

It sounds vaguely like a win for Sam. First one in a while. He sighs in relief and leans back against the bench seat, closing his eyes.

It takes him almost ten minutes to notice that his palm is still splayed on Dean’s thigh, just resting there now, rough callouses on rough denim.

For a moment he is unsure of what to do but the line of Dean’s shoulders is relaxed, his focus on the road in front of them.

Sam doesn’t move his hand until they stop for a bathroom break.

 

**June**. _New York._

“You just had to keep pushing this, didn’t you?”

Sam is mad, _really_ mad, and he can’t fully explain why. He can still taste Sarah’s lipstick on his tongue.

Dean is looking– _staring_ at him in complete bewilderment, his laid-back attitude from just a moment ago vanishing in the face of Sam’s anger. “The hell’re you talking about?”

“Sarah,” Sam says, voice clipped and it’s all he can do not to hiss straight through his teeth, “I told you I didn’t wanna start anything with her. I fucking _told_ you to leave it alone.”

Dean draws his brows together, stops fiddling with the radio – _Wouldn’t ever wanna live in Michigan, Sammy, they don’t even have a classic rock station. They seriously think I’m gonna listen to this New Age shit?_ – and turns his palm up in exasperated confusion.

“What exactly is it that you’re blaming me for right now?”

Sam scoffs. “We always leave, Dean. I didn’t want to get involved.”

“You weren’t supposed to get involved, you were just–” He cuts himself off, gesturing vaguely in Sam’s direction.

“Just what? Supposed to fuck her and leave her, like you do?”

Dean’s eyes flash bright. “I don’t do that.”

“Those two girls at the bar? The ones you told you were a _talent scout_?” Sam isn’t sure why he is bringing this up. Or why he is even still miffed about it.

Neither is Dean, judging from his sideward glance. He hesitates for a beat too long before he shrugs, “Just blowing off steam.”

Sam refrains from rolling his eyes. “I’m not like you, okay? I can’t just … not get involved. It’s what I do. And whenever I do, people get hurt.”

“ _That’s_ what this is about?”

“Yes.” Sam shakes his head. “No. I don’t know.”

Dean’s mouth is pressed into a line. “Well,” he says quietly but not kindly, “until you do, stop taking it out on me.”

Sam is about ready to rip his own hair out. He is coming apart at the seams and he doesn’t know why or how to stop it. It doesn’t have anything to do with Sarah or his visions or wanting to find that demon. It’s more deep-seated than that, like a primal fear clawing its way to the surface and Sam feels like he can’t breathe.

He rolls down the window but the relief is minimal.

Dean keeps giving him concerned looks for the next ten miles or so – Sam can only imagine what he looks like right now – but he doesn’t ask. Sam doesn’t tell. Not that there’s anything _to_ tell and if there was, he wouldn’t know how to say it either way.

The Impala is hurtling over flat country, pushing a hundred miles an hour, and Sam feels like he’s standing still, going stir-crazy with the same-old-same-old.

He thought maybe Sarah would be a welcome distraction after all. Then he wasn’t so sure. Then he told her he was afraid of losing yet another person dear to him. Then she nearly became that person, nearly died at the hands of a little girl’s ghost, and Sam realized that this isn’t about her at all.

She reminded him so much of Jessica that, for the tiniest of moments, he thought she could be worth a shot. In the end, she might be too much like Jessica, or not like her at all.

Either way, she’s not the one he wants.

The radio switches over to Ace of Base’s All That She Wants and Dean curses, makes a gagging noise, and finally flicks it off.

The silence stretches.

 

**July**. _Colorado._

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Sam’s trying, _believe him_ , but he can’t. He is in awe. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but he is still floored that his brother, Dean ‘yessir’ Winchester, who always stuck to John’s side like glue, worshipping, obeying without question or rebellion, unlike Sam, just stood up to their father. On Sam’s behalf rather than his own but it’s impressive anyway.

Dean’s eyes are blazing bright, confused and angry and determined. “Sam! Snap out it.”

Sam startles. Drags in a breath. “I’m sorry, I’m still trying to get used to–I still don’t actually know what you guys got up to when I was gone.”

“You wanna know how we coped without you, you mean.” Dean is staring at a point behind Sam’s head. He shrugs. “We went on separate jobs a lot. Did the more dangerous gigs together.”

“Dean, I know you can cope without me.”

Dean’s expression changes, his eyes focusing on Sam. He blinks a couple of times as if he is only now seeing him. “Yeah.”

He suddenly laughs, a barely audible sound, not more than a huff of breath. An inside joke with himself. “Like having you around better, though.”

“Yeah?” Sam knows the answer to that but he isn’t above teasing his brother. And stroking his own ego.

Dean gives him a wry smile, obviously knowing what Sam is thinking. “Yeah.”

_Me too._

Sam doesn’t say it because Dean would just roll his eyes and brush him off, too close to ‘click-flick’ territory, and Sam doesn’t want to sacrifice the cordial mood of the moment.

Queen starts playing on the radio and Dean turns up the dial a little without looking, autopilot-reaction. Sam smiles. Dean isn’t what one would call a fan but he knows Sam likes them and it’s these little things that Dean does without even thinking about them – possibly without even being aware of them – that get Sam every time. It’s as if he bends around all the things the people around him like and dislike, what they do and don’t do, and he soaks them up until they become part of him.

Sometimes Sam fears Dean doesn’t even know who he is without defining himself through other people. Sam’s protector, John’s right-hand man, a ladies’ man, the avenger of the wronged.

“What is it?”

Sam realizes he’s been staring again but this time Dean doesn’t look as freaked out, isn’t angry. Sam can’t begin to sort through everything that is on his mind, much less put it in words his brother would understand, so he doesn’t. Just smiles and shakes his head.

 

**July**. _Iowa._

The angry hurt in John’s eyes throws Sam enough that he doesn’t ask any further questions, just yessir-s at the same time Dean does. Dean pulls the Impala back onto the road behind their father’s jeep and his jaw is set tight. His eyes mirror some of the hurt in John’s.

“Tell me about him,” Sam says, “I don’t remember much.”

That isn’t exactly the truth. The last time Sam saw Pastor Jim he must have been nearly twelve years old already but telling stories from back when they were kids never fails to make Dean smile. It will give him something to do and with what they are about to face, they could both use some happy memories.

Dean is glancing over as if he knows what Sam is thinking, aware of the manipulation. “About Pastor Jim?”

Sam nods.

“I, uh,” Dean says, chuckling to himself a little. The sound instantly exorcizes the tension from Sam’s body. “I remember thinking I’m too goddamn old for a babysitter.”

Sam smiles along with him but keeps quiet otherwise. Trees and fields flit by outside, the car speeding up and slowing down almost in sync with their father’s jeep ahead of them.

“I remember the time he had to watch that dog for his neighbor lady. Tiny thing, really ugly. It had one of those clichéd names, too, ‘Brutus’ or something. You were beside yourself. Refused to let go of it when dad came to pick us up.” Dean shakes his head and makes a sound that is somewhere between reluctant amusement and disgust.

Sam only remembers bits and pieces from that particular one. He couldn’t have been older than eight and it was more or less his first acquaintance with a domesticated animal. In hindsight, Dean’s right. That was one hell of an ugly dog.

“What else?” he prompts softly, eyes fixed on Dean’s profile. Dean looks over and now it’s obvious that he knows what Sam is doing. He’s scowling but it’s one of those scowls that look like they’re going to break any moment, turning into an eye roll and a reluctantly fond smile instead.

A small laugh wrenches itself free, Sam doesn’t really have any control over it. “Come on,” he says, smacking Dean’s hip with the back of his hand, “What’s your favorite memory?”

“I don’t–” Dean shakes his head but then his face changes. “I don’t have a favorite. My favorites are the normal ones, I guess. Just boring stuff. You studying at the kitchen table, that sort of thing. I used to ask you dumb questions all the time to distract you and fuck with you.”

“I know.” Sam notices that Dean is talking about memories of the two of them now, bringing up _Sam_ more than Pastor Jim, but it’s okay. It’s good.

“I always liked his house, you know, it was…”

“Normal?” Sam finishes for him and Dean nods. Sam gets it, oh, does he ever. It’s not so much about the house, or a house, it’s about having something solid to fall back on. Something stable. Something safe.

Dean nudges him, sharp elbow digging into Sam’s oblique muscle, not hard enough to hurt. “He’d always make us pancakes, remember?”

That one Sam does remember. “With M&Ms in them.”

“Yeah. God, they were amazing.”

“Pretty sure you got sick from eating too much of them on more than one occasion.”

The line of Dean’s mouth stretches into a grin. “So worth it.”

They fall silent after that. They’ve reached city limits – as much as one can call Salvation a city – and John slows down at the first motel he finds. Dean makes the turn right behind him, pulling into the close to empty parking lot.

He puts the Impala in park and turns off the engine but he doesn’t make a move to get out of the car. “Hey, Sam?”

His voice is solemn and Sam has a strange sense of foreboding, like before his visions hit, only this time it doesn’t have anything to do with the supernatural. Maybe it’s a little brother’s intuition. In any case, even if he doesn’t know what Dean is about to say, he is almost positive he isn’t going to like it.

“I don’t wanna get ahead of myself here but … if we do find that demon and kill it, would you still wanna go back to school?”

The question isn’t entirely unexpected but Sam’s stomach turns sour anyway because he still doesn’t have an answer for that. His first instinct, gut reaction to the heartbreak in Dean’s eyes, is to say ‘no’. But he’d rather cut off his own arm than make promises to his brother that he might not be able to keep. He wants so badly to make it better, to make it okay, because Dean’s voice is brittle, his face open, letting Sam see clear as day what Dean _hopes_ the answer will be.

As if Sam didn’t already know.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, his own voice hoarse, and he wants to throw up when Dean’s face falls, closes off again. He nods as if he expected Sam to say that but it’s still painfully obvious that he is disappointed – and below that, scared.

A rap of knuckles against the driver side window startles both of them. John’s face appears in the frame, his voice muffled through the glass when he asks, “You boys coming?”

Without looking at Sam, Dean replies, “Yeah,” and opens the door to get out.

Shit pretty much hits the fan about an hour later when it’s Meg on the phone, spewing fake-sweetness and insults, and maybe it’s not the big showdown yet after all. John looks crushed, Dean seems torn, and Sam can’t help but be the tiniest bit relieved.

 

**July**. _South Dakota._

In total, it takes Sam eight months and four days to figure out that his brother is in love with him.

Maybe it shouldn’t be such a big revelation – really, Sam’s got to have been blind not to realize it sooner – but somehow it’s paralyzing. He doesn’t know how to address it, especially since Dean doesn’t actually _know_ Sam knows.

He isn’t sure what finally made the penny drop but now that it has, Sam can feel himself paying more attention to things. The way Dean seems to never look at him for any extended amount of time, for example. The hesitation in his eyes. The _guilt_ in his eyes. Actually, that’s an easy one to miss because Dean feels guilty for just about everything. The self-loathing isn’t new, either.

So maybe Sam _can’t_ be blamed for not seeing it. Even if it’s all there in the way Dean touches Sam. Maybe Sam didn’t notice because he was gone for four years. Four years where he wasn’t orbiting the astral body that is Dean Winchester. The gravitational pull has been there from the first day, from the moment Sam folded himself into the Impala at one o’clock in the morning or maybe before that. Maybe it’s what made him pack his bags without hesitation that night to drive to a town he’d never heard of with his big brother whom he hadn’t seen _in four years_.

His big brother who’s always kind of had that effect on people.

_I can’t do this alone._

_Yes, you can._

_Yeah, well, I don’t want to._

It all started so innocently. And now Dean’s in love with him.

Actually, _right now_ Dean is angry with him. It took them half the night to scrounge up all kinds of weapons. They collected them from the nooks and crannies in Bobby’s house, stocked up on holy water and containers of salt.

“Fucking hell, Sam, would you get a move on?”

Sam is rooted to the spot where he is standing in Bobby’s living room.

“ _Sam! _”__ Dean waves a hand in front of his face, expression tight, brows steep. “What’s the matter with you?”

___Excellent question._ _ _

Sam doesn’t say that out loud, though. He doesn’t say anything which only seems to worsen Dean’s mood. It’s not really like they have time to dwell on life-altering realizations right now, but goddammit, Sam just caught up with the fact that his _brother_ is in love with him so forgive him if he isn’t currently able to multitask.

Dean makes a frustrated noise, coming from deep in his throat, and he throws the weapon bag over his shoulder. “I’ll be in the car. I’m leaving in ten, whether you’re there or not.”

“Wait.” The word rips free from a place deep inside of Sam, squeezing from his mouth without permission.

“Sam, we don’t have time for this. Whatever it is, tell me in the car.”

“No.” Sam is shaking his head so much he’s starting to get dizzy. At least he can move again.

Now that his muscles have unlocked and he isn’t frozen anymore, he takes two large steps to catch up with Dean, to crowd into his personal space. His hands are framing Dean’s face, two days worth of stubble harsh against his fingertips, before he realizes it.

Dean’s breath hitches, he goes a little cross-eyed with the effort of looking at Sam while he is this close, but he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t withdraw from Sam’s touch and that’s progress.

Dean opens his mouth but whatever words he is forming, he doesn’t get a chance to say them. Suddenly and before he knows it, Sam finds himself kissing his brother, even if it can hardly be called that. It’s barely more than a brush of lips, Dean’s mouth lax against Sam’s.

Dean makes a small noise that sounds a bit like a sob and Sam pulls back.

Dean’s face is pale, his eyes shining suspiciously. He looks a lot like he wants to cry and for one awful, terror-filled moment Sam thinks he has it wrong. Maybe he is delirious after all, maybe he did go insane.

But then Dean says, “Why did you do that?” his voice thick with pain and longing, sounding like nothing Sam’s ever heard before, “You shouldn’t have done that,” and Sam starts breathing again.

‘Why?’ Sam wants to ask but they are interrupted by Bobby appearing in the door frame, scowling at them, telling them to move their asses.

The first thing Sam says after they filled the car up with their bags full of weapons and holy water is, “God, I’m such an idiot.”

Dean glances over at him, his eyebrow curling. “Glad to see you’re self-aware.”

Sam doesn’t respond to the dig. “You told me, you practically spelled it out for me.”

He remembers that conversation even now. For fifteen minutes in four years, Dean’s self-control got obliterated by too much whiskey and he picked up the phone.

“You called me in the middle of the night and you told me you loved me. You actually said that. ‘I love you.’ You said it _twice_.”

_I love you, Sammy._

All this time.

Dean shrugs but the line of his shoulders is rigid. “I was drunk.”

“Yeah, I’ve been telling myself that, too.” Sam can’t believe how he could have been this oblivious. He wants to kick himself. “That it could have meant anything. That even if you’re not the type for these kinds of admissions, it’s not really all that weird.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to admit it.”

Dean insisted on taking back roads, making it to Jefferson City by going cross-country. It’s pitch-black outside, the cone of the Impala’s headlights the only light source. It’s slightly foggy, too, and Dean is driving way too fast but Sam doesn’t want to say anything.

“Why, Sam? Looks like you got this covered.”

A hare appears at the side of the road, paralyzed by the light. Dean doesn’t ease off the accelerator and they speed past before the animal hops onto the road.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. You got it right, okay? You happy now?”

“No, Dean, I’m not.”

“Well, too fucking bad. Because this conversation is over. We’ve got bigger problems right now.”

“This isn’t–” Sam takes a deep breath to calm himself because he is afraid he is going to hit his brother even while he’s driving the car and that wouldn’t help anyone. His head feels too tight as if a vision is about to crash down on him any moment. He knows better, he’s recently developed migraines that don’t have anything to do with his premonitions.

Before the silence has a chance to stretch, to expand and become stifling, he slowly says, “I’m not … freaked out. I’m not disgusted or anything if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He can read the ‘Why not?’ right there on Dean’s face but what his brother says out loud is, “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Then what?”

Dean scoffs, “Are you serious?”

The pain from Sam’s temples is beginning to spread to the center of his forehead. Combined with the rocky motions of the car it’s making him slightly nauseous. He hasn’t slept, he doesn’t have much strength left and, right now, he can’t muster up the determination to keep arguing with his brother. If what they’re doing can even be called arguing.

What’s the etiquette for finding out your brother, who’s looked after you your entire life, is in love with you? What do you do when you feel like climbing out of your own skin because your thoughts are swirling all over the place and you can’t seem to make sense of a single one?


	2. Part 2

**July**. _South Dakota._

It takes Sam another three days to figure out that he is in love with Dean, too.

This one should be a much bigger a revelation but, to be honest, Sam already sort of suspected it. It’s barely more than a ‘huh’ moment.

It’s kind of clichéd, the whole ‘you nearly died and I realized I love you’ but Sam is too tired to care about clichés. He doesn’t even think that’s it. The accident, the hospital, the coma, they might have been the catalyst that led to the eventual wow effect but all he can think about, even now, is Dean’s pain-weak voice begging Sam not to shoot.

What he should be remembering is John yelling at him, pleading, _ordering_ him, to end it all once and for all – and the terrible truth is that Sam was ready to – but all he heard in that moment was the barely-there whisper of Dean’s voice.

_Please, Sam._

He sided with his brother before then, too, trusting Dean’s instincts over his own, because all of a sudden he was able to tune into Dean’s frequency so easily it’s almost scary. They spent most of the past year out of sync and then Sam had to go and ruin it even more by fucking _kissing_ Dean, but maybe he didn’t ruin it all. Maybe he simply tipped the scale into a different direction, shaking something loose.

So maybe it’s always kind of been there. Maybe this isn’t new at all.

What hits him so hard about all of this is that he can’t _tell_ Dean about his epiphany because Dean still hasn’t woken up. Sam doesn’t want to come up with all these ‘what if’ scenarios but his mind is doing it anyway, spinning, reeling, and it all centers around one thought.

_You said you’d haunt my ass if I messed with your car. Well, Dean, I wrecked it. So where the fuck are you?_

There are moments where Sam thinks he can feel him, hanging around, lounging by the window sill, judging Sam from the beyond for his red nose and his puffy eyes.

Sam has to wipe more tears away as he sinks down on the plastic hospital chair beside his brother’s bed. It’s uncomfortable but it could have thumbtacks on the seat for all Sam cares, he isn’t budging. Even now, he can’t make himself say anything, afraid he’ll start sobbing uncontrollably right there at his big brother’s bedside. But he leans down anyway, hand heavy on Dean’s shoulder, and presses the lightest of kisses against Dean’s temple.

Sam swears he can smell him. Not the hospital stench of blood and disinfectant, but leather and gun oil, sweat and hair gel, and – strangely enough – the slightest hint of cinnamon.

The Ouija board is the first idea he comes up with and he knows Dean is going to make fun for him for it if– _when_ he wakes up but as it turns out it’s also a pretty brilliant one because it works. Sam has never been more relieved to be right, never more grateful for his instincts, for his ability to tell Dean in a crowd, anywhere, in an instant.

He wishes he could not only sense but actively touch him, awake and alive, but that will have to wait. Oh, the things Sam wants to tell him, he’s practically vibrating with it. It’s not just about his realization, it’s everything. He just wants to hear Dean’s voice again, wants to hear him laugh and tease and insult. Scoff and yell and whisper hoarsely.

Sam is granted his wish before the day is over but everything always comes at a cost.

**July**. _Wisconsin._

They don’t talk about the kiss but they also don’t _not_ talk about it.

Dean wouldn’t bring it up if someone waterboarded him and Sam doesn’t bring it up because he’s not exactly dying to get his ass kicked, but they don’t run and they don’t hide from each other.

Contrary to Sam’s expectations Dean doesn’t look away when Sam looks at him, he doesn’t snatch his hand away when it accidentally brushes Sam’s over a cup of coffee, and he doesn’t do anything as ridiculous as getting dressed or changing in the bathroom behind a locked door. Even if the hand clutching the towel around his waist is a little more tense than usual.

It’s _something._

They also don’t talk about their father but not for Sam’s lack of trying. He’s expecting to get his ass kicked for that any day now, too.

It’s almost been a week in which Dean has done nothing but work on the car. He is sunburnt and cranky but it keeps him busy – and away from bashing Sam’s nose in with his fist – so Sam doesn’t say anything. Besides, he is the one who crashed the car and he still feels guilty.

The case they catch happens to be about clowns and that’s just Sam’s luck. But he can’t complain because Dean is actually being agreeable for the first time since the doctors pronounced John Winchester dead on July 19, 10:41 AM.

At least up to the point where he blows up, bottled up anger and pain ripping free, and gets in Sam’s face about it. Sam stops pushing the issue but by the time they wrap up the case he’s vibrating with the effort it takes to hold back and he is furious at his brother for refusing to talk about it. For leaving him alone with this.

He’s not entirely sure whether ‘it’ is about their father or something else and from the look on his brother’s face, he’s onto Sam. Dean takes it out on the Impala instead of Sam and somehow that hurts more.

**August**. _Montana._

“Sam, I’m sorry.”

Sam is already shaking his head before Dean finishes the sentence. “You can stop apologizing. I’m not going to hit you.”

He thinks he catches Dean flinching but it might be a trick of the low light.

“You were right,” Dean says quietly, tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel that isn’t in tune with the music, “About Gordon. About me trying to find a–a substitute for dad. I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, I just–”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” Dean shakes his head, “it’s not. I know I should talk to you, I don’t know why it’s so hard for me.”

“You don’t have to protect me anymore.”

Dean sighs, tired and weary, and Sam’s chest contracts at the sound. “That’s just it, Sam. I don’t know what else to do. You went and grew up on me when I wasn’t looking and now I don’t know what you need from me. If you even still need me at all.”

_I’ll always need you. Always._

“I need you to talk to me about shit instead of consorting with hunters that, according to Ellen, are bad news.”

It’s a mean dig, below the belt, and Dean rubs his temples. “I know.” It’s all he says.

There is so much left unsaid but even now Sam can’t put it all out in the open. Instead, he says, “Never would’ve pegged myself for the jealous type.”

It’s been happening more frequently lately, especially in the presence of Jo, and it took Sam an embarrassingly long time to figure out that that tight clench around his ribcage is, in fact, jealousy.

Dean asks, “What?”

Sam has never had much reason to be jealous of anyone. Jessica was never one to flirt around despite her beauty and the only other person he’s loved as much or more was focused on nothing but him for his entire childhood. It’s a testament to how fucked up their lives are that Sam never questioned that devotion, never once thought about how, if Dean was so focused on Sam, there was no one to be focused on Dean. Sam wasn’t exactly a grateful kid and while he knows he isn’t the only one to blame for that, the realization cuts deep anyway.

Dean never seemed lonely to Sam but maybe he didn’t want to see it. It hurts to know, clenches tighter than the jealously.

“Gordon,” Sam says as an explanation, “I berated you about replacing dad but to be honest, I was afraid you were replacing me. In a way. It’s stupid, I know.”

Sam can see how much his admission throws Dean off when he’s met with two too-green, wide open eyes.

“That _is_ stupid,” Dean says and Sam sinks lower in his seat.

Dean immediately shakes his head, “That’s not what I meant,” reaching for Sam but stopping short of his shoulder. Sam wishes Dean would just touch him.

**August**. _Illinois._

_I was dead and I should have stayed dead._

Sam wants to yell at him, wants to scream ‘no’ over and over and over, but Dean is already crying and he can’t make himself open his mouth.

Dean has said ‘What’s dead should stay dead!’ three times in as many days and Sam’s known from the first time on that this isn’t about Angela at all.

He wants to say, ‘You weren’t dead, Dean,’ but he knows it isn’t true. He felt it, right there in the hospital, felt Dean’s room getting colder and emptier, felt Dean slipping away. Whatever happened to make him wake up, it came just in time.

Sam is glad. Fucking ecstatic and that’s at least half the reason he isn't saying anything now. Dean thinks it’s his fault but Sam is pretty sure that it’s his own. He wanted Dean back so much that he was prepared to do anything. Would have been okay with anything.

Including John dying in Dean’s stead and he doesn’t know how it happened, why it happened but if he’d known then that it would, it wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing. How is he ever supposed to explain that to Dean?

It makes him sick to his stomach to see his brother in this much pain, shouldering so much blame, and it’s driving Sam crazy that he can’t be sorry. He is mourning the loss of yet another parent, grieving for his father, for Dean, for himself. But he doesn’t have the decency not to be relieved. 

**September**. _Oklahoma._

Sam doesn’t make fun of the fact that, for a change, Dean is the one with the major headache. Even if the volume at which he is complaining is unwarranted and, frankly, pretty childish.

Sam doesn’t make fun of him because he is still reeling from the mental image of Dean shooting himself in the head, compelled to by another person, a human and yet … a monster. Sam is reeling and he isn’t sure whether it’s because Dean was a hair’s breadth away from dying – _again_ – or because today he saw – _again_ – how someone with powers, someone who is so much like him, murders innocent people. Turns into something Sam has to hunt.

It doesn’t help that he wasn’t the one who killed Weber. Actually, it makes it worse because now Andy isn’t all that innocent anymore, either.

Hunting and killing monsters is not the same, Sam knows that, but he feels like a bit of a hypocrite anyway for judging Andy with all that blood on his own hands.

“Wanna tell me what you’re thinkin’?” Dean ask then and Sam snorts. Can’t help himself because he’s pretty sure Dean doesn’t want to know.

Dean’s question serves to pull him out of his own head, though, and he’s grateful for that. He turns to look at his brother as they’re walking to the car, letting it hit him all over that Dean could– _would_ have died if Andy hadn’t done what he did. Maybe Sam should start thinking of Andy as the hero instead of a possible villain. The thought makes him breathe a little easier.

He realizes he still hasn’t answered his brother. Dean has stopped complaining about his headache, looking at Sam with his brows raised in expectation. The concern is visible in his eyes and Sam’s heart sinks. Dean will always put Sam’s well-being before his own, that’s not new, but it’s these moments that keep driving it home. It might just be a headache this time but Sam is sure Dean wouldn’t care even if he was life-threateningly ill if there’s something Sam needs first. It’s scary and sometimes Sam doesn’t know how to handle it.

He shakes his head after another moment and puts his hand on Dean’s arm to stop him walking.

“Sam–”

Sam says, “Hush,” and to his surprise Dean hushes. They’re out of sight of Andy and the police but Sam still moves slowly when he raises his fingertips to Dean’s temples, giving him the chance to pull away.

Dean starts, body giving a jolt, but his eyelids slip shut when Sam’s fingers begin massaging the pressure points, soothing his headache like Dean’s done before for him. For a moment, Dean’s face is entirely unguarded, his mouth slightly open, a sigh of relief escaping through his parted lips. Sam rests his thumbs against Dean’s cheekbones, traces the curved line below his closed eyes.

He can hear Dean draw a shuddery breath when Sam dares to lean forward and rest his forehead against his brother’s. Maybe it’s bravery or maybe it’s recklessness but in any case it makes Sam hold his breath, waiting for Dean to pull away.

Dean does eventually, sooner than Sam would like. He opens his eyes and steps back, Sam’s hands falling away to hang limp at his sides.

“Let’s go,” Dean says softly and then, “Thanks, Sammy.”

 

**September**. _Pennsylvania._

After H. H. Holmes’s ghost, after that ridiculous stab of jealousy at seeing Dean with Jo, Sam starts dreaming.

At first, he thinks the dreams are visions and that’s why he wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and sweating, chest heaving, and Dean’s right there, gripping his shoulder, saying, “Sammy,” and, “Just a dream,” over and over again until Sam’s heart rate slows down.

It turns out to be just that. A dream. A cruel, horrific nightmare dragging Sam under, drowning him with images of Dean, beaten and bruised, shot and mauled, bleeding, blood, so much blood. They’re so real but not real enough, thank god, they don’t actually _become_ real. Sam checked.

Whenever they happen, he doesn’t go back to sleep. Sits upright in his bed instead, reading yellowing pages of library books in the blueish light of his phone screen because Dean complained about the bedside lamp after the first night. When Sam gets too tired, ink swimming before his eyes, he puts away the book and just watches his brother sleep. By then, Dean will have nodded off again after being woken up by Sam’s shouts, otherwise he would surely make some sort of comment about it. Sam makes sure not to get caught.

He watches Dean during the day then, too, trying to be subtle about but it takes Dean all of two days to catch on. “Sam, what’s the matter?” he asks for the second time already and for the second time Sam simply shakes his head.

Dean drops it until it happens again and again. About once or twice a week there is a day where Sam won’t leave his brother’s side for longer than it takes either of them to pee or take a shower and even then he asks Dean to keep the bathroom door ajar.

It’s three weeks in and Dean snaps. “What the hell is going on, Sam?”

“Nothing,” Sam says, autopilot reaction. _Don’t make him worry._

“No, it’s something. Tell me. Because I’ve had it. Why is it that I can’t even brush my fucking teeth without you looking like someone kidnapped your child? What’s going on?”

Sam looks at his brother, really _looks_ , and Dean is about two seconds away from exploding. He isn’t angry, not really, more worried and helpless than angry, but Dean has this annoying tendency to channel his emotions, particularly the ones he doesn’t know how to handle, into anger. Sam knows this but most days it’s hard not to respond in kind, to get mad right back, to get in Dean’s face about all the unfairness and confront all those repressed emotions.

Sam is sure all of it is going to blow up in their faces one day.

“I’ve been having dreams,” he explains vaguely and Dean is nodding before he can finish, making a ‘go on’ gesture.

Sam sighs. “They’re just dreams, Dean, but they’re … violent. And you … die in them. And sometimes I can’t tell the difference between a nightmare and a vision, it’s all sort of blurring together, and I can’t be wrong. When I had that vision about you dying, with Max, I–I just can’t be wrong about this.”

He stops there, hand flopping uselessly at his side, and closes his eyes because he can feel a headache forming.

That’s another thing. He’s in pain almost constantly these days and it’s exhausting. Usually it’s migraines and they get worse with every vision, with every night he doesn’t sleep properly – which is practically every night – but sometimes it’s a stomachache, like dread settling deep and festering, and then there are all those bruises and injuries. He’s been back a year and he still hasn’t gotten used to that.

Dean is looking at him with his head tilted to the side and Sam doesn’t dare do more than glance at him out of the corner of his eyes for fear of seeing pity in his brother’s eyes. He really does not want to be pitied. He didn’t even want to _tell_ Dean, for crying out loud, but Dean worms his way under people’s skin, under Sam’s skin and makes a nest there, electrifying every nerve ending and every cell in Sam’s body.

Sam finds it nearly impossible to lie to his brother these days. It’s a skill he misses greatly.

“It’s all right,” Dean says eventually and weirdly enough, it sounds like he means it. “I’m here, I ain’t going anywhere. We’re gonna figure it out.”

“They’re just dreams,” Sam repeats to reassure both his brother and himself.

Dean smiles. Simply says, “I know.”

The next time it happens, when Sam finds himself sweat-drenched and shaking with only the moon outside to illuminate the world around him, Dean’s hands are cupping his face, Dean’s fingers are in his hair, and Dean’s voice is in his ears, murmuring things like, “Right here,” and, “It’s okay,” and, “Go back to sleep.”

For the first time since the dreams started happening, Sam does.

**October**. _Maryland._

Dean is bumping his shoulder against Sam’s, talking about craving pea soup, and Sam wants to yell at him. He feels like he is going to throw up if he just so much as thinks about food.

He’s still seeing Dean in his mind, kneeling on the ground, dirt and water seeping into his jeans to stain his knees, his hands cuffed in front of his body, and it’s terrifying. Terrifying because it’s as helpless as Dean gets, at the point of a loaded gun – a cop’s gun no less – and it would have been so pointless it’s almost hysterical.

As hunters they live with the constant threat of death as a Damocles sword above their heads. Sam knows that and he tries not to underestimate it. But then something like this happens and he is reminded of how danger comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s shocking and it throws him every time, which makes it all the more frustrating that Dean is still going on about food, seemingly unaffected by the day they’ve had.

If Sam honestly thought that Dean’s as unfazed as he is pretending to be, he wouldn’t press the issue. “Dean, stop.”

“What?” Dean stops walking. “It’s still a long way to the car and I’m starving. Let’s move.”

“Don’t just brush this off.”

“Christ, Sam, don’t start with that shit.”

Sam wishes he could drop it. He wishes he could stop seeing Dean on the ground, could stop imagining him bleeding out right there on the clammy soil. He wishes he could just shove it down and ignore it, never to be thought about again. He’s never had Dean’s ability to repress these kinds of things and it’s the cross he has to bear.

But he’ll be damned if he lets Dean mock him for it.

“God, you’re so frustrating. Sometimes I can’t believe I–” _Love you. Am in love with you. Want you so much._

It’s right there, hanging in the chilly October air, and Sam knows Dean knows. Knows even though Sam didn’t actually say anything. Knows even though he pretends not to have heard what Sam didn’t say.

They’ve been dancing around it for months and it is slowly making its home in the negative space between them. Sam isn’t sure how long he– _they_ can keep going like this without going insane. Because he knows it’s not just him. Dean is just as restless. The pea soup babble is just a diversion, for his own benefit more so than for Sam’s because Sam is the one who actually wants to talk about what’s between them. What’s most likely always been between them.

There’s no doubt left in Sam’s mind that Dean knows now how deeply rooted this it. Sam almost expected him to drop the ‘It’s just a phase’ line at some point but so far he hasn’t. Maybe acknowledging that much would be too difficult already.

For all his bravado, his macho ‘I’m Dean Winchester and I’m a hero’ shtick, he can be a goddamn coward sometimes.  

**November**. _Mississippi._

“Can I say something?”

“Can I stop you?”

As far as rhetoric questions go it’s pretty out there and Sam ignores it. Instead, he says, “I don’t think dad did it for you. Not really.”

“Sam, he sold his soul to keep me alive.”

“Yeah, but you said it yourself when you were going off at Evan. It was selfish. I think he did it for himself, so he wouldn’t have to live without his son. And he did it for me.”

Nighttime made for deserted roads and the wind – next to the low volume of the radio, low enough that Sam can’t make out the song that’s playing – is the only sound. Sam thinks he can hear Dean breathing.

His brother is quiet for another half mile or so, car hurtling at breakneck speed but Sam is relaxed in the passenger seat. He’s never minded Dean’s driving style, never felt anything but safe inside the Impala. The smell of old leather and burned rubber has always been a comfort.

Dean’s voice is slightly hoarse when he finally speaks, as if there is something in his throat he’s trying to work around. “He dedicated half his life to hunting this thing down. And when he’s finally got a shot…”

“He doesn’t take it,” Sam finishes for him because he’s not sure Dean can, “Because there are things that are more important. Because he also dedicated his life to us. And you wanna know something else?”

“Not sure I do.”

Sam swallows, says, “I’m glad he did what he did. Because it gave you back to me.”

He steels himself for an outburst, preparing himself for Dean to jerk the car to the shoulder and yell at him, take a swing at him, maybe throw him out of the car to speed off on his own.

It hits him just as hard when Dean doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, he makes a small pained sound, mouth clamped shut against it, and Sam realizes his brother is trying not to cry. A pit opens up in his stomach but he can’t bring himself to regret his admission. He’s been thinking it for months and it’s been eating its way through his insides like acid. For once, he made the selfish decision to speak up and he can’t take it back. Doesn’t want to.

He can feel the car slowing down, can see Dean hesitate before pulling over to the side of the road after all. He shuts off the engine, hands resting uselessly on the wheel, eyes front.

Sam flattens his breathing. He can hear his own heart beating in the silence.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Dean says then, rough-voiced, “The deal. I wouldn’t have made it. Dad would’a killed me if I’d just thrown away what he did like that.”

Sam’s head has been in a similar place so he just nods.

“I’m just…” Dean gives a watery laugh and Sam’s throat closes up. “I’m just still so mad at him, Sammy. One minute he’s there and the next… No warning, no nothing. He didn’t even give us a chance.”

“To do what?”

“To save him.”

“We couldn’t have,” Sam argues, the quiet outside suffocating him, “You know we couldn’t have. Even if–Your life was bound to that deal, Dean. Going back on it–” He still can’t make himself say it. Even after months, he still can’t think about what would have happened if John hadn’t made the deal, what their lives would look like right now. How they would have soldiered on.

Jessica had barely been dead for nine months at the time and Sam doesn’t think he would have survived losing his brother.

Perhaps John knew that all along, even after four years of absence, after only being back together as a family for a week. Sam never gave the man enough credit. Or maybe it’s just that obvious.

Dean doesn’t say anything for a long time while the car’s interior is growing cold. Then, “I just … don’t know if what I’m doing is enough. It’s been over three months and not a blip on the demon radar. Maybe we’re not looking hard enough.”

“We’ll find it,” Sam says and for once he doesn’t have any doubts about something, “We’ll find it and we’ll kill it. But in the meantime we’re saving lives. _That’s_ what dad would have wanted.”

Dean looks over at him for the first time in hours. Sam can barely make out his expression in the dark but he can feel Dean’s eyes on him, all intense focus, and it’s difficult not to fidget in his seat.

“You’re right,” Dean says, “I don’t like it because that’s my prerogative but you’re right.”

**November**. _Oregon._

“I still can’t believe you did that.”

Dean slams the driver side door and twists the key to start the engine. “Drop it, Sam.” He isn’t angry, it almost sounds like a suggestion. Sam knows it isn’t.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Well, tough.” Still that cordial tone. It makes Sam’s teeth grate together.

Dean cranks up the radio on the way out of town, starts whistling along, and Sam’s had enough.

“You asshole,” he presses through his set teeth and he can see Dean rolling his eyes even though he is staring straight ahead.

“Unclench your panties, Samantha. Frowning gives you premature wrinkles.” He reaches over, the tip of his index finger tapping the crease between Sam’s eyebrows and Sam is so furious he forgets to breathe for all of five seconds. He smacks Dean’s hand away so hard that his own palm stings.

“You’re such a fucking bastard, you know that? If you’re so ready to just roll over and die, then what’s the point of all this? What, one demon virus, I’m infected – or not – and that’s it for you, you quit? If you can’t see why you’re important, why you’re _needed_ … If you’re just here because I am then—”

“Then what, Sam?” Dean sounds agitated now, stark contrast to his make-belief joviality a minute ago. It sounds like he, too, is carrying a lot of the anger that Sam is feeling. “What if I don’t do this because it’s all for a bigger purpose? What if I do this because I don’t know what else to do and we’re in it together? Why is there something wrong with that?”

He sounds like he means it, too, and Sam is speechless for a moment. “If by ‘this’ you mean hunting, there’s nothing wrong with that. If by ‘this’ you mean staying alive, then ... I don’t even know where to start.”

“Don’t patronize me, Sam. You can’t tell me there wasn’t a time after Jessica where you were ready to throw in the towel.”

‘No, there wasn’t,’ Sam wants to say but refrains because he doesn’t want to be a hypocrite. Maybe there wasn’t a time where he wanted to die after Jessica – his thirst for revenge all-consuming – but there was a time barely half a year ago where he would have been okay with crawling into that hospital bed along with his brother. Lie down next to him and just … stop breathing.

The silence rubberbands between them until Dean says, “I don’t want to die, in case you’re worried about that. I won’t throw myself off the next cliff or whatever.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

It’s true but they both know that’s not what this is about. Sam doesn’t know how he is supposed to make Dean understand, how he is supposed to explain to him that he lives in a constant state of paralysis. That it’s bad enough that he has to worry about monsters getting them, getting _Dean_ , when they fight to their last breath but it’s that much scarier when he can’t be sure that Dean even wants to fight.

He knows he isn’t giving his brother enough credit, isn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt but the thought of losing Dean because he doesn’t value his own life enough, values Sam’s life so much more, is so terrifying it makes it hard to breathe.

“Stop thinking,” Dean says gruffly, “It’s giving me a headache.”

“Giving _you_ a headache? That’s–That’s funny.”

It isn’t, not really, and Sam’s laugh sounds weak to his own ears. He tries to stop his hands from shaking by rubbing them against his jeans.

Then Dean does something that Sam wouldn’t have expected in a million years and for a split-second the word ‘Christo’ is at the tip of his tongue.

Dean reaches over and puts his right hand on top of Sam’s left where it’s lying tense on top of his thigh. The tremble vanishes and Sam stares down at the back of Dean’s hand. It’s all he can do not to sit there, gaping like a fish on land.

Dean’s shoulders are an uneasy line of ‘For god’s sake, keep your mouth shut’ so Sam, for god’s sake, keeps his mouth shut. They don’t touch often these days and Sam misses it. Dean is constantly on edge, either angry or worried and Sam is usually just worried, and he can’t remember when they last caught a break.

He relaxes into the seat and flexes his fingers experimentally, letting them slip into the negative spaces between Dean’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Dean raise his eyebrows but he doesn’t move his hand. 

**November**. _Indiana._

Sam is sitting on the toilet seat in their motel room’s tiny bathroom.

There’s barely enough space for Dean to kneel in front of him with the first-aid kit and it’s obvious that Dean is trying to touch him no more than necessary. Sam is biting his tongue against a possibly hurtful remark.

Despite Dean’s reluctance, despite his hesitation, the slight tremor in his fingers that are clamped around the cotton swab isn’t something Sam could miss at this distance. He grits his teeth against the sting of the alcohol seeping into the wound on his cheek. He doesn’t want to speak for fear that Dean will get to his feet and and leave Sam there to take care of himself.

To be fair, it’s not like he is in dire need of being patched up – it’s a split cheek, a few abrasions, and what feels like a couple of bruised ribs – but Dean couldn’t stop touching Sam after Gordon was arrested. Light contant, mostly on top of clothing but Sam felt every single one like a hot-red mark seared into his skin. Despite the burn of the disinfectant he doesn’t flinch away from Dean, angling his cheek toward him. His body knows how to respond to his brother even when Sam’s brain is at a loss.

“Pull your shirt up,” Dean says, voice rough with disuse but his tone is detached, almost professional, and Sam shivers with cold.

He does as he is told and the pads of Dean’s fingers gently prod along Sam’s ribcage, hesitating for a second every time Sam hisses in pain before continuing. Sam shivers again – not with cold this time – when the callouses on Dean’s fingers find his sternum.

“Ain’t broken,” Dean says, pulling back, “Gonna hurt like a son of a bitch for a few days, though.”

Sam knows that and he isn’t looking forward to it but it’s far from his first rodeo. It took him a while to get used to the life and the near-constant injuries again. His pain tolerance is higher than other people’s but it’s not really something anyone should ever have to get used to. If he thought he could get away with it, he would complain a bit more, whine some, maybe keep a hand pressed to his ribs when moving around to draw and keep his brother’s attention.

But Dean is scowling – it’s that no-nonsense sort of look he gets when he’s already been pushed too far and it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t Sam who did the pushing. Dean has barely said a word on the way back to the motel. Sam is used to silence between them but usually that silence is a more comfortable one.

“Sorry for scaring you,” Sam says into the quiet, “I couldn’t let you know I knew about the IED because Gordon would’ve known, too. I couldn’t risk him getting away or hurting you.”

Dean’s head tilts upward to look at him and it’s both familiar and not. He opens his mouth but seems to reconsider at the last moment, a tiny sound escapes before he clicks his jaw shut again and cuts his eyes away, repacking the first-aid kit more neatly than necessary to keep his hands busy.

Sam wants to fold his fingers around Dean’s wrist and feel the dig of bones against his palm. Wants to tug Dean up and closer until their foreheads bump together and they can breathe in the lack of space between them. He wants to pull Dean in by his face and kiss him until his body has stopped trembling, until the scowl is gone, until they’re both breathless and hard.

He curls his hands into fists and it takes everything in him not to reach out.

**December**. _Connecticut._

Sam almost kissed Dean when he was drunk.

It’s a little muddled now that it’s morning and he’s sober again, but he remembers reaching for Dean, holding onto him as if he was drowning, and he remembers Dean’s solid grip on him, wrestling him into bed to sleep it off. He didn’t notice last night but now Dean’s devastated face is back in focus in his mind and he winces. Wishes he didn’t have to put that on his brother. Wishes he didn’t have to make him promise.

He remembers being furious with their father and now he is making Dean carry that burden all over again. It’s not a promise he would ever be able to keep if their roles were reversed and he knows he is a selfish dick for asking.

His hands are itching with restlessness. He is about to get rid of his cast, only has to wear it for another week, and it’s become more of a hinderance than a help. He can move his fingers fine and the only thing impacting his ability to write or shoot a gun now is the cast.

He sighs and stops picking at a loose piece of bandage between his thumb and index finger.

They say goodbye to Susan and on the way out Dean gets defensive when Sam reminds him of last night’s promise, the promise to end Sam if it ever came to it. His voice is so carefully neutral when he deflects, it makes Sam’s teeth grind together.

He doesn’t _want_ to get angry but it seems like it’s all he can do these days. It’s almost like it used to be right after Jessica died. He is all out of insults, all out of topics to argue about with Dean, all out of _energy_ to argue. He’s so sick and tired–

Surprising himself, he grabs Dean by his labels with his left, dragging him around the corner of the building. Before Dean can find his footing, Sam’s got him shoved against the wood and brick exterior of the old house, pressing up against him with a growl, and kisses him like he wanted to last night and didn’t.

It’s neither chaste nor precise but desperate and messy and Sam’s fingers twist in the front of Dean’s jacket. Dean isn’t kissing him back, not really. He’s pliant against the wall, against Sam, mouth open, letting Sam lick into him, but he doesn’t reciprocate and when his hands grab Sam’s shoulders, Sam wrenches himself away before Dean can push him off.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulse racing, “Fuck, I shouldn’t have–I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t fair to do this, both here and at all, but he can’t–

Dean can be so frustrating sometimes and Sam’s all out of ideas how to deal with it. It’s driving him crazy, not being allowed to touch his brother the way he wants to. It figures that he would be the one to fall in love with the single most emotionally stunted person on this planet. He sure as hell knows how to pick ‘em.

Dean doesn’t look angry. He looks tired and that’s worse. It makes Sam hate himself even more. He presses the back of his hand against his mouth, stifling a sob, and squeezes his eyes shut before turning on his heels.

It’s one of those things that they aren’t going to talk about, just like they aren’t going to talk about the promise that Dean made. Or that they were taken for a couple _again_ and Dean didn’t deny it. Or that briefest of looks, so easy to miss, that Dean gave Sam after he jokingly accused Dean of overcompensating.

It’s one of those things that they will drag along with them, that will sit in the space between them like a stowaway, an unwanted companion, occasionally, uncomfortably, reminding them of its presence during one of those drawn-out awkward silences.

**January**. _Wisconsin._

On their way out of Wisconsin Sam thinks about how all those damn movies Dean loves so much always get it wrong.

Being an outlaw, a wanted man, in the United States of America isn’t fun. It isn’t exhilarating or freeing, ‘laugh in the face of the law’ and all that shit. They’re not Butch and Sundance. Dean isn’t Lucky Luke, no matter how much he pretends to be.

It’s a pain in the ass is what it is.

They burn all their fake aliases, IDs and credit cards literally going up in smoke. Sam can still smell melting plastic half a day later when they find a motel about an hour from Pittsburgh, scrounging up their last poker money to pay for one night in cash. It’s probably not far enough – Henriksen is a bloodhound – but it’s the best they can do for the moment. They’ll have to change the plates on the car, too, as soon as possible but first of all, Sam needs to sleep.

Dean does, too. He’s driven for nearly ten hours straight, maneuvering back roads at forty miles over the speed limit to put as much space between them and the FBI as possible. Adrenaline has ebbed away hours ago and Sam can see the exhaustion in the lines of his brother’s face, in his shoulders and his shuffling feet.

Both of them badly need some rest but he doesn’t think they’re going to get it, both too used to being alert at all times and even more so when in danger. Sam doesn’t know if they can run fast enough, far enough, now that one of Quantico’s finest has picked up their trail.

Dean made a cheesy ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ joke when he got off the phone with Henriksen in the bank, basking in the attention a little more than Sam’s comfortable with, but the concern was clear on his face.

“I fucking hate the FBI,” Dean says as he’s untying his boots. Then he seems to think better of it, his hands freeze and he laces them back up again. He takes the gun out from the waistband of his jeans, keeping his fingers curled around the safety. Sam isn’t sure why but the image squeezes his heart painfully for a moment even if he is just as tightly wound as his brother.

“More than you hate shapeshifters?”

Dean’s lips curl sardonically. “At least I’m allowed to shoot shapeshifters.”

Sam doesn’t have a retort for that so he stays quiet. It’s almost dark again and he hasn’t slept in over thirty hours, aside from the nap he took in the Impala earlier but it can’t have been more than half an hour and it wasn’t very restful, either.

Regardless, he says, “Get some sleep. I’ll take first shift.”

He expects Dean to argue, to make a fuss about being the oldest, the protector, the one responsible for making sure they’re safe. Maybe when he was little Sam thought Dean was Superman but he can only go without sleep for so long. Plus, he drove all the way, white-knuckled and his jaw set so hard Sam swore he could hear his brother’s teeth grind together.

Still, it’s a surprise – a nice one – when Dean doesn’t say anything, just nods and stretches out on the bed by the door. He’s still fully dressed and Sam’s fingers itch to rid him of at least his shoes and his jacket and maybe his jeans, but he refrains.

It’s even more of a surprise when Dean actually falls asleep twenty minutes later. Sam can feel his own eyelids drooping and he briefly considers switching on the TV or the radio to stay awake but it might wake up Dean and he isn’t willing to take that risk. Instead, he settles in the chair by the window, gun ready on the table in front of him, and he shakes some of the tension out of his shoulders.

Watching his brother sleep isn’t a conscious decision. It’s dark and he is bored and the too-quiet silence is making him anxious. So he focuses on his brother’s breathing, steady and even in his sleep even when his eyes are moving restlessly behind closed lids. His fingers twitch occasionally toward his pillow where Sam knows Dean’s got a knife stashed. He wonders if his brother is dreaming and if he is, what he is dreaming about.

They don’t talk much these days and sometimes Sam feels lonelier in Dean’s company now than he did at Stanford. 

**January**. _Rhode Island._

Dean is itching to leave but their motel room is actually kind of nice for a change, only half as many water stains as usual, and Sam isn’t in a hurry.

“I’m sorry, Sammy,” Dean says as he’s stuffing a pair of jeans into their laundry bag. It’s filling up quickly and they’re going to have to make a trip to a laundromat soon. “Hate being right sometimes. Would’a been nice if there was such a thing as angelic power, huh?”

Sam nods, hands clasped in front of him. It’s eerily reminiscent of a praying pose and he quickly untangles his fingers, rubbing his palms along his thighs.

“Tell me more about her,” he prompts quietly.

Dean freezes. It comes out slightly hoarse when he asks, “Mom?”

Sam nods again, jams his hands underneath his thighs. He is staring at his knees, not looking at his brother, but he can sense Dean’s hesitation.

With a sigh that sounds too weary for his twenty-eight years, Dean dumps the rest of his clothes on the bed next to his duffel bag and shuffles over to where Sam is perched on the edge of the mattress. There isn’t much space and he sits down close enough for their legs to be pressed together, his shoulder bumping against Sam’s.

Sam’s suddenly hit with the overwhelming desire to curl up in Dean’s lap, fit himself into Dean’s body like he used to do when he was much younger and much smaller.

“I don’t know what you want me to–”

“Just anything,” Sam says without looking up, “I just … wanna hear something nice.”

Dean stays quiet for another moment, then he blows out a breath. “She, uh. She’d sing in the kitchen. And when she put me to bed. Hey Jude mostly. Think it was her favorite song.”

Sam finally looks up, taking in Dean’s open face, the tiniest trace of grief lingering but his mouth is curving with a smile ever so slightly. “Hey Jude?”

Dean grin widens, lines appearing in the corners of his eyes. “Yeah. Why?”

Sam can’t tell why it amuses him, just that it does. A Beatles song wouldn’t exactly be his first choice as a lullaby but it makes an odd sort of sense.

Dean shrugs next to him, jostling him where their shoulders are still touching. “I don’t think she was a Beatles fan, I think she just liked that song.” He leans a little more heavily into Sam’s side. “To be honest, I don’t know how much–I was so young, I can’t tell anymore what I actually remember, what dad told me, and what I made up to … fit my image of her, I guess.”

His expression is drawn, pinched, as if he is genuinely bothered by not being able to retain memories from when he was four years old. Knowing Dean, he’s probably beating himself up for it, too.

For some reason, the thought makes Sam chuckle. It’s dry and harsh, sounding vaguely deranged. Nothing about this is funny.

Dean stays quiet next to him. Sam can feel his brother’s even breathing, ribcage expanding and contracting against his own, and their breaths synchronize automatically. It’s the strangest thing, their bodies so close and attuned to each other when there seems to be more distance between them than ever.

It’s not solely Dean’s fault. Sam could say something, could push, take a risk, but he doesn’t. It’s partly because maybe it’s _too_ big a risk but mostly he is too tired, doesn’t have the energy to get into it. The nightmares have died down for the most part but sleep still doesn’t come any easier.

There are rare days where he thinks that maybe it’s for the best. They’re too wrapped up in each other as it is. Going beyond that, going beyond being brothers and partners, it would make things more complicated, more dangerous, and more scary. This is what the reasonable part of Sam’s brain keeps telling him but the voice of reason is quiet, _really_ quiet, barely more than a whisper, and most days just Dean’s breathing next to him is enough to drown it out.

By all means, he _should_ be scared by it. He is too rational a person not to be but it’s so familiar. Dean has always been the one exception to his rationality. Honestly, nothing about Dean, about their relationship, is even remotely rational. There’s no reason, no being responsible, no doing the right thing. What even _is_ the right thing anymore?

Sam rubs his hand over his face, digging the heel of it into his eyes until he’s seeing stars.

Dean’s fingers gently close around his wrist and he pulls Sam’s hand away, then brushes some of Sam’s hair back behind his ear. He’s still not saying anything and the disconcertingly tender gesture leaves Sam speechless. He allows himself to turn his face into the touch, just the fraction of an inch but he can feel Dean stutter in his movements.

Sam swallows and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s pleading with whatever entity is listening, begging for Dean not to pull away, to stay put for goddamn fucking once, and when Dean does Sam is so surprised he makes a small desperate sound. Dean’s hand curls around the back of Sam’s head, thumb massaging the spot at the back of his skull, right above the nape of his neck, in meaningless circles.

Dean shifts next to him. “Sam,” he says, voice too raw, making Sam shiver, “I’m not–I’m not trying to lead you on or punish you or whatever you might be thinking.”

“What _are_ you trying to do?” Sam turns his head to look at his brother and Dean’s hand falls down to Sam’s neck. Dean’s eyes seem caught by it for a moment, his own lighter skin against Sam’s slightly more tanned one, and he experimentally brushes up under Sam’s ear.

Sam can’t help it that his eyes slip shut again. It’s almost embarrassing how intensely he is reacting to Dean’s touch but he feels so starved for it he can’t do anything _but_ react. He holds himself completely still for fear of scaring Dean off, of making a wrong move. But then Dean seems to snap out of whatever haze he is in and he gives a nervous chuckle. He wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulders, squeezes in a way that is more familiar, safer, more brotherly.

Sam can’t stand it, can’t stand ‘safe’. He doesn’t want ‘brotherly’. He needs this to be something else.

He doesn’t attack-kiss Dean again like he did in Cornwall. He wants to, but he doesn’t. Instead he slides his right hand between Dean’s legs, halfway up his thigh, and digs his fingers into meat and muscle, feeling the inner seam of Dean’s jeans under his fingernails. Dean startles, makes a gasping sound that’s somewhere between shock and indignation, and he sits up straighter, ready to bolt.

Sam digs his fingers in deeper to what must be the point of pain. Dean hisses, his fingers clamp down on Sam’s forearm but he doesn’t try to pull him off. One beat, two, three, and his body goes slack, practically slumping into Sam’s side, forehead dropping to Sam’s shoulder. The breaths he’s taking are labored, damp against the sleeve of Sam’s shirt, and Sam swears he can feel him shaking.

Sam loosens his grip and pulls his hand away so he can wrap his arm around Dean’s middle, his palm over the jut of Dean’s hipbone, under his T-shirt, just above the waistband of his jeans. He can feel goosebumps rising against the callouses on his fingers.

He turns his head to the side until his mouth is brushing against his brother’s hairline. “Tell me why. Make me understand.”

Sam can feel him shake his head. It’s a jerky movement, complete with a shuddery intake of breath. “Not sure I can, Sammy. It’s–I’ve lived with this for so long, I don’t know how–You’re my little brother. My _baby_ brother and I fed you and held you when you were crying.” Another unsteady inhale. “It’s so wrong, Sam. And if we–There’s no telling what’s gonna happen and I–I just can’t.”

Sam doesn’t know what to say to that. There is nothing _to_ say because yes, it’s wrong but no, he doesn’t care. But if Dean does, there is no way he won’t just because Sam tells him it’s okay. Because it’s really not and Sam _gets_ it. Dean’s never just been his best friend, never just his brother, he’s also always been a parent. So he gets it and he _should_ care. Perhaps that makes him the sicker one of the two of them but it’s not a contest.

Without thinking, he strokes his thumb across Dean’s hip, just the briefest of caresses but it makes Dean shudder against him and there’s a small startled noise out of his mouth, muffled against Sam’s shoulder, before Dean abruptly pulls away and Sam lets him.

**January**. _South Dakota._

Sam knows instantly that Meg is gone from his head when he comes to. His vision is clearer, the colors brighter, and the ringing in his ears has stopped. He’s got a splitting headache but that could be from where he tumbled against Bobby’s shelf unit. He can feel a bump forming on the right side of his head and a bruise on his cheek where Dean – rightfully – clocked him one. He runs his fingers over it, working his jaw to counteract the stiffness.

Dean is half-sitting against the stack of books by the door, one hand pressed to his injured shoulder and he is too pale, his breathing too uneven. Sam instinctively reaches for him, outstretched hand, and Dean flinches imperceptibly. He’s got every right but it still stings and Sam drops his hand.

“I’ma get the first-aid kit,” Bobby grumbles, his steps sounding retreat as Sam shuffles across the floor to where Dean collapsed.

He doesn’t try to touch his brother again. His throat is too clogged to speak, he can only hope his face conveys what he can’t stay. How sorry he is, how angry he is with himself, with Meg, with everything.

Bobby returns and says, “That’s gonna need restitching,” nodding at the shoulder Dean is still clutching, line of his mouth tight with pain.

Sam takes the kit from Bobby, rasps, “I’ll do it,” because he needs to touch Dean, needs to make sure that he’s going to be okay, that _they’re_ going to be okay, and Dean won’t let him otherwise.

He doesn’t look at him, either, keeps his gaze studiously fixed on a spot behind Sam’s head. His breathing speeds up when Sam cleans the wound and picks up the needle, redoing the row of stitches as quickly as he can, but he doesn’t make a sound. His jaw is set tight against the point of the needle piercing his skin but he flinches more when Sam presses his elbow against his sternum to keep him still while he works.

Sam is trembling with unshed energy, with exhaustion, with his own kind of pain, but his fingers holding the needle are surprisingly steady.

The silence is loaded, occasionally interrupted by a sharp intake of breath on Dean’s part, until Bobby clears his throat and both Sam and Dean jump. Bobby makes a vague gesture at the both of them, then to the open space of his kitchen. “If you need me, I’m gonna be … somewhere else.”

Dean gives a dry snort, jostling Sam’s arm against his chest. For one brief, wonderful moment, it makes Sam smile.

Then reality catches up with him again. “Dean, I’m–”

“Don’t,” Dean says quietly and Sam’s heart sinks, he can feel his smile slip away. The bruise on his jaw has started throbbing, adding to his headache.

He stays quiet while he dresses the wound, smoothing out the strips of tape, stark-white against Dean’s freckled skin, and cleans away the last of the blood. The sight makes him nauseous but it’s not the blood itself, it’s the fact that he was the one to put it there, he was the one who shot his brother, shot to kill, even if the aim was off by a few inches. He can’t actually remember now if Meg did that or if he did, breaking through for a moment to knock the gun off-center. Maybe Meg had no intention of killing Dean either way, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know and there was that other hunter that Meg killed, that he killed, and he can’t–

“Hey.” Dean’s soft voice lets him snap out of it. He blinks away the haze, withdrawing his fingers from Dean’s shoulder because now they’re trembling.

It’s dangerously close to a sob when he spills, “I shot you. I hit you.”

His thumb finds the place where Dean’s lip split open, not bleeding anymore but red and sore-looking and it takes everything he has not to lean in and fit his own lips over it, just a light brush of mouths. He can imagine the hitch in Dean’s breath, how his brother’s body would turn into his, hands fisting in the front of Sam’s T-shirt.

Dean’s fingers curl around his elbow. “It wasn’t you. I’m not mad at you, Sammy. I’m not.”

And just like that Sam believes him. Like that he’s okay because he’s Sammy again and he takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with much-needed air after depriving them without realizing it. He’s afraid he might hyperventilate but Dean’s palm presses gently against the curve of his collar bone and Sam anchors himself, fingers fitting around Dean’s forearm, not clenching tight, just holding, grounding.

He shakes his head wildly, can’t stop, “I’m sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Dean says, carding through Sam’s hair with his fingers and then he jumps when Sam presses a light kiss to the unmarred skin next to the gauze-covered wound on his shoulder. It’s a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing and Dean makes a small noise. His fingers briefly tighten in Sam’s hair before they go slack again and continue their petting. 

____

__**February**. _Ohio.__ _

Perhaps one would think arguing isn’t exactly something enjoyable. And it’s not, for the most part.

But they’ve been tip-toeing around each other lately, careful not to get too close – literally and figuratively. And Sam can’t help but be a little ecstatic about the way Dean’s attention is focused on him much more when he’s angry.

It makes an odd sort of sense, Sam thinks. Being the little brother, riling Dean up has always been one of his favorite past times, whether it’s on purpose or by accident, just collateral damage of something else.

It doesn’t matter that it’s really not his fault this time. And he’s angry because Dean is being annoying entirely on purpose but it’s makes Sam breathe a little more easily, too. They’re fighting, which means they’re talking, even if it’s full of accusations and insults, and it feels natural.

When they find out that it’s been a Trickster all along, Sam might actually be a little disappointed. It’s not like they’ve actually been at each other’s throats in a violent way – although Dean does tend to bring that impulse out even in the calmest of people and Sam’s usually slightly agitated to begin with – and for a while there, while Dean resorted to childish pranks, it felt like home.

Sam prefers a Dean who is exasperated and yelling at him to a Dean who is stoic, all work and no play, and walks on eggshells, for his own sake more so than for Sam’s.

It’s difficult to talk to Dean these days. About anything other than the job. They work together as well as they always did, so that’s what Sam focuses on most days. But it’s not enough. It’s not all there is, not even as far as Dean is concerned.

They have quiet days in between, where nothing pings their radar, where the newspapers report perfectly normal stories and nothing about the obituaries seems fishy.

It’s those quiet days that are the hardest because it’s increasingly difficult to find neutral topics and not to stare for too long. Dean often goes out to a local bar and doesn’t come back until well into the night and he sleeps past noon the next day. Sam sometimes thinks about joining him but it wouldn’t be a good idea. He doesn’t hold his liquor as well as Dean does and he’s afraid of what might come out of his mouth.

It’s not that Dean doesn’t know how he feels. Sam doesn’t think he could have made it any clearer with his pushing, his looking, and his almost-touches that he only remembers to abort at the last second. Dean might be bullheaded and obtuse at times but he’s observant and if it appears like he’s missing something it’s usually because he doesn’t want to see it.

Sometimes Sam thinks he never should have said anything, never should have done anything to let Dean know that he’s not the only one, that he isn’t alone in this, because it would make everything easier. If Dean didn’t know he wouldn’t avoid Sam so much, wouldn’t be so careful, wouldn’t read so much into every word.

But ‘easier’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘better’ and Sam can’t be sorry. Just because there isn’t a chance now doesn’t mean there won’t be a chance in the future.

He’s never been a patient person but maybe the only thing he can do is learn to be.

**February**. _Nevada_.

Sam doesn’t know why he makes the comment, the one about knowing what it’s like, projecting yet another couple’s antics onto himself and Dean. It just sort of comes naturally because it’s _true_ but Dean gives him a sideward glance and he falls quiet.

It’s a first one for them, having to deal with a ghost who doesn’t know she’s dead, but they handle it with the usual tact and diplomacy. Which is to say, Sam spends most of his time trying to keep Dean from figuratively kicking down the entire house instead of just gently knocking on the door, only to have him do exactly that after all anyway.

It’s a dance they do, a twisted version of the good-cop-bad-cop routine and it works. It’s creepy sometimes how well they play off each other on the job, communicating without words. Always sensing danger right before it hits.

Hunting’s never been the problem. It’s everything else that they get stuck on.

Sam briefly considers asking Molly for marriage advice, partly to piss Dean off but partly because he– _they_ could probably use it, but he scraps the idea again immediately. It is just as likely to send Dean through the roof as it is to amuse him. Sam can never tell these days. He used to be a lot better at anticipating his brother’s reactions.

It feels like Sam isn’t the only powder keg around anymore. Both of them are destined to blow sooner or later.

“You know,” Dean says on the way out of Nevada, “This was actually kind of a good one.”

Sam snorts. “Right. If everyone’s already dead, no one can die.”

“Pessimist.”

Sam knows what Dean’s saying. They helped someone who needed help, no matter the fact that her heart technically didn’t beat anymore, and that’s what counts.

**March**. _California_.

Sam stays with Madison for quite a while after. He holds her, cradles her. Maybe he’s trying to apologize for how he isn’t going to be at her funeral. How he isn’t going to pay for what he did.

He knows they have to go soon. His DNA is all over the bedroom and Dean probably left some prints around the apartment as well and they can’t risk Henriksen catching up to them. Funny thing is, half the things the FBI accuses them of, they didn’t actually do.

Now there’s actually something Sam should be punished for.

He tries to tell himself it’s no different than all the other times, all the other monsters he killed, but Madison wasn’t a monster. Not by his standards and those are really the only ones he can live by these days.

He knew this woman, liked her, and for a moment there, he was living in limbo. In the non-reality hanging outside of his actual life, the one that keeps catching up with him, that he just can’t seem to shake.

It wasn’t even a conscious try this time and it still backfired.

He carries Madison to the bed and puts her down on top of the covers. Strokes a piece of hair out of her face before he finally turns around.

He finds Dean standing in the door frame, having moved without a sound as always. It doesn’t startle Sam anymore.

Dean doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, not with pity but there’s regret in his eyes all the same. Sam doesn’t care to figure out for what exactly Dean is sorry for right now. Dean’s always sorry for something these days.

“We gotta go,” Dean says then, almost brusque, voice a lot steadier than Sam feels. Sam’s glad for it. He wouldn’t know what to do with compassion.

Trust Dean to know what Sam needs from him in any given moment. It’s almost eerie sometimes, the way Dean senses Sam’s emotions, whether it’s pain or guilt or anger or frustration, and reacts accordingly.

Sam doesn’t thank him enough and he won’t this time, either. It’s a thing that just is.

Sam knows he should show more gratitude, should be more attentive to Dean than he is when he’s too wrapped up in himself but right now is not the time for that. They really do need to go.

He gathers himself and nods at his brother, both comprehension and agreement, and when Dean nods back and turns away, Sam catches a glint of wetness in his eyelashes.

**March**. _California_.

Sam tells himself it’s ridiculous to be jealous, but he also tells himself that he isn’t really jealous, so it’s a moot point anyway.

He knows Dean sleeps with women because he wants to, not because it’s an intentional plot to hurt Sam. Only Sam can’t help but think that, this time, it’s because Sam had sex with Madison. But Dean would never do that. He can be petty but he isn’t cruel, isn’t mean, and he doesn’t tend to hold a grudge.

Besides, it’s a bit of a stretch that Dean would want to _punish_ him like this. Just the thought makes Sam angry at himself, at his own imagination and his impulsiveness.

It doesn’t matter why he’s angry or whom he’s angry at, though, just that he is. But that’s not a new development. It’s been going on for more or less two years now and he doesn’t know if it’s still because of Jessica, or because of his new-old life, or that yellow-eyed demon, or John, or Dean, or all of the above.

He’s stopped trying to do anything about it. For a while, he worked out almost religiously, not just to get back on track, catch up with Dean who never stopped hunting, working, running for his life, and it served as somewhat as an outlet.

But other than the anger that’s a constant simmer of agitation sitting beneath his skin, Sam’s also always tired. He’s exhausted, bone-deep weariness, and he knows it occasionally affects his performance. Dean rarely says anything about it, used to Sam’s insomnia that crept up right after Jessica died and never completely went away.

It’s not just the visions or the resulting headaches. It’s not the job that’s keeping him up. It’s not even Jessica anymore. He still thinks about her, still misses her every time he sees something that reminds him of her smile, her blonde hair, or her sparkling eyes, but it’s not the crushing sadness that it used to be.

Sometimes Sam regrets that Dean never really got to know her. ‘I’m sure I would’a liked her, Sammy,’ Dean said once, a few months after the fire, and Sam remembers smiling wistfully and saying ‘She would’a liked you, too,’ even though he doesn’t know if that’s true. Dean isn’t an easy person to get along with. Not long-term. Sam doesn’t even really get along with him long-term.

“Dean,” he says when they reach the car, about to leave Los Angeles in the rearview mirror where it belongs, and Dean’s eyes jerk up from where he’s fiddling with his keys. The grin he had on his face when he came out of that actress’s trailer has long vanished.

“Yeah?”

“You think we’d get along if we weren’t brothers?” Sam asks quietly, his elbow on top of the car, carefully positioned so Dean doesn’t snap at him for denting the roof, “Or even if we hadn’t grown up the way we did, if … no one in our family hunted. You’d think we’d get along?”

Dean’s forehead crinkles. He twirls the keys around his fingers. “Why are you asking me this?”

“It’s just something that came to my mind.”

“I don’t know,” Dean shrugs lightly, “I think we’d be completely different people if we weren’t hunters. It’s not just want we do, Sam, it’s what we are. Or a big part of it, at least.”

Dean doesn’t correct himself this time, doesn’t say ‘Well, it’s what I am,’ and Sam doesn’t do it, either, because Dean’s always been right when he said hunting was in their blood. Sam used to think he was different from the rest of his family, that that was why, growing up, it was difficult for him, but he doesn’t think he is all that different after all. Not anymore. It doesn’t bother him like it used to.

“I guess. It’s not important anyway.”

Usually, Dean wouldn’t ask, would simply drop it, would dismiss it with a ‘my brother is such a weirdo’ look, the one he always adopts when Sam starts talking hypotheticals, but this time is different.

“No, tell me.”

Sam sighs, leans more heavily against the car. “I don’t know why I asked. I just sometimes wonder … why we’re doing this together. I know, ‘family’ and ‘having each other’s backs’ and all that and … we’re all that’s left, I know. But that’s not exactly an argument if you think about it. I mean, do you–Do you even _like_ me? I mean, would you be friends with me if we weren’t related, if we just randomly met somewhere? Because I don’t think so.”

Dean stares at him for a moment, eyes unreadable, and then he adjusts his stance and gives a small laugh. “Wow, you’ve thought about this.”

Sam shrugs.

“I can’t tell you that, Sam,” Dean says, his face open and honest, and Sam’s fairly impressed that he isn’t being mocked right now, “Maybe yes. Maybe no. Probably no. I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s important because we are brothers and no matter what you say, that _matters_. It matters to me, at least.”

Sam shakes his head, his fingers tracing lazy figures on the roof of the car. The sun is setting on the horizon and they’ve maybe got another fifteen minutes of daylight before it will be dark.

“It matters to me, too,” Sam backtracks, “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying–I guess I don’t really know what I’m saying. We’re just … very different.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No. But I feel like maybe it should.”

Dean’s half-smiling in that way he turns to when he is listening but not really processing, not comprehending. Sam appreciates the effort his brother makes to keep up with his discombobulated thoughts. Most days, Sam can’t even keep up with them himself.

The truth is, it’s not so much a problem that they’re different in the sense that they’ve got different interests, different tastes in music and cars and women, but it’s a problem that they’re different in the way they communicate.

Sam, from the moment he was born, has learned to communicate Dean’s way. Through intuition, though touches, through body language, through eyes. But he’s never quite mastered it.

It’s hard sometimes, putting thoughts and feelings into words, even for Sam, but he needs it. He likes to choose his words carefully, tries to give each one meaning, letting none go to waste. Dean’s always been a talker but he rarely _says_ anything. He tries, for Sam’s sake, but it’s not enough.

Sam feels like it shouldn’t be so difficult. He feels like he should just _know_ , should know what Dean’s thinking and feeling, what he wants and what he needs, but he doesn’t. Not anymore. Not when he’s so at war with himself. He doesn’t feel solid anymore. It’s not just the world around him that’s crumbling, it’s Sam, too, and he doesn’t know how he’s ever supposed to make Dean understand.

Dean is the only constant, always has been. Sam isn’t afraid that Dean will leave or die – although, of course that is an ever-present concern in the life they’re living. He never used to be afraid to ask for what he needs. But he is now.

Dean may think that he relies to much on Sam, needs him too much, isn’t capable of doing what has to be done sometimes because of it, but that’s not true. Sam is pretty sure he is the one who’s lost without his brother, not the other way around.

“The answer’s yes,” Dean says suddenly, startling Sam, and Sam blinks at him.

“Yes to what?”

Dean’s smiling that half-smile again but he doesn’t look forlorn now. There’s some color in his cheeks but it could be the slight sunburn he’s acquired over the past few days in California.

“Yes, I like you,” he says easily and Sam wouldn’t know what to say to that even if he could find his breath, “For all intents and purposes.” 

**April**. _Arkansas_.

They fare far better in prison than Sam would have suspected. A couple of altercations but nothing major and after a few days, the other inmates leave them alone.

Sam remains of the opinion that Dean is way too pretty to be here but so far, there has only been one critical encounter in the lunch room. By that Sam means, a man in his early fifties, complete with the creepy moustache, made a pass at Dean, grabbing him around his waist when he wasn’t paying attention and pulling him back into his burly body, whispering something in his ear that Sam didn’t catch. As soon as Dean managed to struggle away and whip around, the guy got nailed in the face by Dean’s fist for all his trouble.

Sam winced when the guy crashed to the floor and hit his head on one of the tables on the way down, instantly limp, a sickening crack sounding through the near-empty room. Given the fact that the he had just tried to molest his brother, Sam couldn’t exactly work up any concern about possible cranial bleeding.

Dean is still standing there, staring, until he jumps when Sam’s hand comes down hard on his shoulder. “Just me. We gotta go.”

Dean’s eyes are too wide and he’s too pliant, letting Sam tug him down the hallway, around the corner, where he can lean against the wall and catch his breath.

“Sammy.” Chest working hard, his gaze flickered up at Sam. “Did I kill him?”

“Probably.” Sam doesn’t see the point in lying or sugarcoating. He grips his brother’s arms. “Hey, you defended yourself. He hit his head. It’s unfortunate but I’m not gonna cry about it.”

Sam is momentarily scared that Dean will space out again but instead there is a weak smile at the corners of his mouth. “Isn’t that what you usually like to do?”

Sam hugs him them, impulse and relief, arms winding around Dean’s middle to squeeze him tightly, and Dean makes a small sound but quickly melts into him. His arms come around Sam’s back, his head on Sam’s shoulder, and ugly possessiveness rears its head but this isn’t the time.

“I hate this place,” Sam says quietly, feeling Dean nod.

“I know you do.” Dean pulls back slowly, almost reluctantly, and Sam’s hands fall from his waist. “Let’s find this ghost so we can get the hell outta here.”

**April**. _Illinois_.

“Can you tell me about it?” Sam asks into the static quiet of the room.

Dean’s had a shower and he isn’t shivering in cold sweat anymore but his skin is still pale and there are dark smudges under his eyes. He’s wearing one of Sam’s cozy hoodies and he looks way too young. Sam’s fingers are itching to reach out, tug him closer, and wrap him up in a crushing hug, but he stays where he is, perched on the edge of his motel bed.

Dean sighs. “It wasn’t real, Sam. Not just… I mean, it was all based on what I imagined mom to be like. Imagined Jessica to be like. Doesn’t mean that’s how they were, or would’ve been.”

His words are slow, as if he’s careful not to slur them together, and Sam’s jaw clicks.

“I know,” he says, “But still. Would you?”

He knows he’s asking a lot, and Dean desperately needs some sleep, and he would drop it if he thought it would actually make things better.

Dean shrugs then, nods, and sinks to the chair by the table, sitting on it backwards so he can set his chin on his crossed arms. “It … was nice. I mean, at first I thought it _was_ real, you know, not just a–a hallucination.”

“Were you happy there?”

Dean’s eyes focus on him, muddy green with exhaustion, and he smiles a little sadly. “Yeah, at first. Well, at _first_ , I was confused as hell,” he chuckles quietly, “but then I went to see mom and I thought it couldn’t get better than that.”

The corners of Sam’s mouth turn up as well, not any less melancholic than Dean looks, and he is surprised that the mention of their mother doesn’t spark the same grief inside of him than it used to. John hardly ever talked about her, made her into a secret, something to be ashamed of, and Sam always had too many questions. Has always been too curious for his own good.

“It wasn’t perfect, Sam, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t want to stay.”

“Really?” Sam tilts his head at his brother and Dean’s smile falters, “Because you really didn’t want to stay or because you figured out it wasn’t real and you were–you were dying out here?”

Dean looks down. Scratches at a splinter in the back of the wooden chair where the varnish is peeling off. He swallows, “Little bit of both, I guess. I mean, if it _had_ been real, if that would’a been my new life, I suppose I could’a made it work. But it was … it was disappointing actually, if I’m being honest.”

“How so?”

Dean makes a dismissive gesture, then picks some more at the wood. “Well, not disappointing, I don’t wanna say that. You know I’d give anything–“

Sam shakes his head, cutting him off. “I know that’s not what you meant.”

Dean’s eyes flicker up and his mouth curves briefly, reassurance as much as gratitude. “It’s just … I had no guidance? Dad wasn’t alive there but even if he had been, he wouldn’t have been the man we knew.”

Sam stays silent. He’s fighting the urge to fidget, flexing his fingers against the mattress.

“You remember,” Dean continues, “how you asked me if I thought we’d get along if we weren’t hunters?”

After a moment of silence, Sam realizes Dean is actually waiting for a confirmation from him and he jolts, sucks in a breath. “Yeah, what about it?”

“We didn’t.” The curl to Dean’s mouth is wry. “Not at all actually.”

“Why?”

“Because I was a dick,” Deans says flatly, without emotion, “and you were a bore.”

It takes a moment to seep through but then a startled laugh rips from Sam’s chest and Dean grins along with him.

“No news there,” they both say at the same time and there’s more laughter, more grinning.

It feels good to laugh, even if it’s a little foreign. Dean still looks tired but not as weary anymore and Sam’s inner restlessness is settling. He takes a deep, controlled breath.

Dean sobers up a little then, his grin slowing to the barest hint of a smile, only really visible in the corners of his eyes. “It was good to see you and Jessica happy together.”

Sam presses his tongue against the inside of his upper teeth. He’s watching every twitch in Dean’s face closely when he returns, “Was it?”

Dean stares at him, unmoving, for a moment before he reaches up and rubs his brow. His eyes flit to the side and then he gives a little laugh as if he’s remembering something.

Before Sam can ask Dean says, “I had a girlfriend. Her name was Carmen.”

Sam’s stomach turns. He presses his hands, suddenly sweaty and shaky, against his jeans-clad thighs, digging his fingernails in. It isn’t a conscious reaction, isn’t reasonable since nothing Dean encountered in the dream world was actually _real_ but Sam’s body doesn’t know that.

“I knew you’d look at me like that,” Dean says through the noise in Sam’s ears and Sam makes an effort to unclench his jaw and smooth out the furrows on his forehead.

He manages a weak, “What was she like?”

“She, uh,” Dean coughs a little, almost self-conscious, “She was beautiful. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Tall, too, almost as tall as me, with those gorgeous long legs. And she … smelled like vanilla? I don’t know.”

He shakes his head, smiling down at his hands. “She knew what kind of burgers I like and she brought me my favorite beer and we watched old movies together.”

Sam forces his voice steady. “Sounds like everything you could ever want.”

“Yes,” Dean says, no hesitation, and Sam’s lungs are suddenly unable to draw in oxygen.

He knows he isn’t being fair but it’s all he can he can do not to let the hurt overtake him, because he wants that for Dean, he really does. Dean still wants the same for him, apparently, if the appearance of Jessica in his feverish dream is any indication.

Sam can’t blame a fucking _dream_ for being painful, can’t be angry with Dean for this, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t have anyone to blame but himself. He presses his hands together in helplessness.

When he looks back up, Dean is smiling at him. It’s a familiar one, indulgent and fond, the one that says ‘my little brother is an idiot but I can’t be mad at him because he’s so adorable’ and Sam has no idea what in the world could possess Dean to be so goddamn condescending right now when Sam feels like he is falling apart.

“What’s so fucking funny?” he asks and maybe he doesn’t care about controlling his anger after all.

Dean is worrying his bottom lip, as if he’s trying to work himself up to something. Maybe an explanation.

“Dean!”

“She was you,” Dean says quietly, almost too quietly for Sam to hear.

“What?” he asks dumbly because it’s all he can do while his heart misses a beat.

Dean sighs, “The djinn got it wrong, you know. If he’d gotten it right, who knows, maybe I’d’a stayed.”

Sam thinks he might slowly be catching on to what Dean is saying but he can’t help himself. “But I was there.”

Dean drops his head onto his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you, man, it’s not a science. Maybe that version of you was there because I wished you could’a had a life with Jess. Maybe, deep down, I still blame myself for dragging you away from her.”

Sam isn’t going to touch that one, not now, even if everything inside of him is screaming for him to correct Dean, to tell him that if there’s anyone to blame it’s Sam, but Dean wouldn’t want to hear any of that, and there wouldn’t be any headway to make. It’s not important, not anymore.

“But,” Dean enunciates the word carefully, emphasis and hesitation, “that wasn’t the version of you that I–that I–”

He grits his teeth visibly, clenching his fist, angry at himself and maybe at Sam, too, and Sam says, “It’s okay.”

Dean shakes his head almost frantically. “No, Sam, it’s not. That’s the problem. It’s really not okay.”

He sounds distraught and it tugs at something inside Sam.

Sam rises from the bed then and Dean’s head instantly snaps up, on high alert as soon as Sam inches closer, and he stands up from the chair as well, clearly unwilling to let Sam tower over him.

“Yes,” Sam says and steps even closer, “It is.”

It’s a miracle that Dean stays where he is. Doesn’t back away. Doesn’t tell Sam to stop, to leave him alone. His body is tense, Sam can see it in the way he holds itself and he knows before he puts his hands on Dean’s flanks, he’s is going to feel hard-coiled muscle under his palms.

Some day, Sam thinks distantly, Dean is going to pull something by keeping himself so rigid all the time, but he doesn’t make the joke. There is no place for it.

“I understand,” he says instead, although it’s not quite true. He doesn’t, not fully. He knows that Dean is afraid, he can _feel_ it, like a constant white noise in the background, but he isn’t sure of what exactly. All he knows is that he can’t push.

Dean might not get scared easily but once he does, he’s like a spooked animal. Withdraws instead of lashing out.

They breathe each other in as if it’s something new, Dean with his mouth parted and his eyes wide open, still holding himself utterly, unnaturally still.

Sam allows himself to guide his hands a little lower, fold them over Dean’s hipbones underneath the hem of his shirt.

“I know you’re not ready,” he almost-whispers. He can feels Dean swallow. “I don’t know that you ever will be but I want you to know that I am. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, and I want you.”

It’s the first time either of them has actually _said_ it and Dean’s sharp inhale is loud against the silent backdrop of the otherwise empty motel room. His eyes flutter shut and he tilts his head, almost as if in question, waiting for Sam’s next move.

Sam cherishes the openness of Dean’s face for a moment, this instant of unguarded vulnerability, and then he dips forward, close enough for Dean to sense him even with his eyes closed, slow enough for Dean to pull away. When he doesn’t, Sam chastely presses their mouths together. As if Dean is going to shatter apart in his arms if he isn’t careful, and there’s nothing sexual about it. It’s giving and taking comfort. It’s a promise that Sam’s making.

_I’m here. I’m not leaving you._

Dean breathes against him, a slight hitch in his chest. His hands rest warmly on Sam’s forearms.

As Sam pulls back, he brushes his lips out over Dean’s chin, his hands squeezing Dean’s hip, grounding and reassuring, before he lets go.

Dean coughs slightly. “Alright, you big girl,” he says and if it sounds a little watery, Sam is going to keep his mouth shut about it. 

**April**. _South Dakota_.

Sam has been disoriented since he woke up in Cold Oak. He’s been disoriented and _terrified_ since Yellow Eyes told him about the demon blood.

It’s a strange thing, it’s not–

He thinks he _knew_. In a way, he’s known all along. That there’s something wrong with him. More wrong, more fucked-up than he already knew he is anyway. The anger inside him, the desire to shed his skin and become someone–some _thing_ else, the feeling of something not quite human living inside of him, it all makes more sense to him now.

He would probably freak out if he had the time, but he doesn’t. There are people around him right now, people who are in the same situation as he is and just as scared, friends of his, but he’s still alone because Dean’s not here. It’s as if he can’t breathe right and he really needs to get that under control, clear his head, and find a way to make sense of this chaos.

He does, eventually, and that’s when Dean finds him.

The staggering relief is short-lived, however, because then pain flames from the center of his back and Sam wants to laugh.

It’s not very fairytale, he thinks, to kill the damsel in distress just before the hero can get there. Then he remembers the original Grimm tales and how they usually didn’t take the turn of a happy ending.

It’s kind of a good metaphor for their lives, actually. People only know the sugarcoated version but the reality, the original, is brutal and raw and more often than not it feels like a hundred miles an hour on a downhill slope. Most days it’s not so bad because they’ve got each other. After everything they’ve still got each other.

He wants to tell Dean that, how important they are, how thankful he is, but he can’t speak. The world is growing fuzzy at the edges and he can’t even make out Dean’s face properly anymore. That’s what scares him the most because Dean has always been solid. Always there.

But he’s there now, too, and he’s holding Sam in his arms. Sam knows that, even if he can't see. He hears someone speak, maybe yell, maybe his name, but it’s distant. He wishes he could tell his brother ‘Thank you’ one more time but Dean would only ask him ‘For what, Sammy?’ and Sam is too tired to explain. 

**May**. _South Dakota_.

Sam wakes up with a deep-seated ache in his spine. The room smells stale, like dust and decay, and he keeps rubbing the painful spot on the small of his back until Dean slams into the room, suspiciously out of breath.

“What–” Sam begins but never gets a chance to finish because Dean’s already got his arms around him, squeezing way too tightly.

The drive to Sioux Falls is quiet. Sam feels restless and Dean sits behind the wheel with a disconcerting calmness. He keeps glancing over at Sam, as if he’s making sure Sam hasn’t suddenly disappeared into thin air, and Sam supposes he can’t blame his brother.

“How long was I out?” he asks.

“Two days, give or take.”

Sam nods. He’s still tired, although that’s to be expected. He isn’t sure what Dean did to raise him from his coma, what kind of hoodoo crap he pulled and he doesn’t really want to ask.

Dean occasionally touches his knee. More reassurance. Sam certainly doesn’t mind.

Dean keeps his palm resting on Sam’s back, right over the wound that’s not there anymore, body heat counteracting the phantom pain, and he does so all way across the salvage yard and into Bobby’s kitchen, through the ‘we-made-it’ hugs and the ‘You boys want something to eat?’.

Bobby’s looking at them as if he can’t quite believe they’re real and Sam is about to say that he just wants to sleep for about a week when Dean beats him to the punch. “Thanks, Bobby, but we both really need a shower and a bed.”

He probably doesn’t mean to make it sound suggestive, and Bobby surely won’t take it that way, but Sam jolts at the double meaning. Can’t help himself.

They trudge up the stairs and throw their bags into the guest room. Sam feels disgusting enough, dried sweat and sticky dust, that he sheds his clothes on the spot and pads into the adjacent bathroom naked. To his surprise, it earns him a chuckle from Dean and then the surprise increases exponentially, nearly morphing into shock, when Dean follows him.

“What–”

Dean shushes him with a hand flat on his chest, steering him toward the shower and in. Sam is too bewildered to remember to turn on the water, so he just stands there for a moment, shivering, while Dean strips and leaves his own clothes in a messy heap on the rug.

He then turns on the water for the both of them as he steps inside the cubicle, crowding Sam to the tiled wall. The water is too hot when it hits Sam’s skin but he sighs with relief anyway because it’s already doing wonders to soothe the knotted muscles in his back.

Dean lightly presses his fingers against the aching spot above Sam’s tailbone. “This still hurt?”

“Little bit. It’s fine,” Sam replies, his voice too breathless for his own liking.

Dean grabs the shower gel and starts lathering Sam’s shoulders and back, slowly, insistently working out the kinks, and despite his lingering confusion, Sam lets his head drop forward, rolling his shoulder blades into Dean’s touches. He lets Dean shampoo his hair and rinse it clean before he turns around and settles his hands on Dean’s hips.

There’s no hitch to Dean’s breath, no flinching away, just his own fingers curling around Sam’s elbows in return.

“Why?” Sam asks.

Dean smiles and it has a painful quality to it. For a moment, he looks far away, as if he is remembering something. Then, with a shudder, his eyes focus on Sam again and he inhales.

“Because,” he says and it’s not an answer, except for how it totally is.

_Two days._

“We’ve had close calls before,” Sam says but at the same time his hands wander higher, spanning Dean’s lower ribs and he squeezes lightly, pressing his fingers into Dean’s skin.

“Not like this,” Dean says, voice barely above a whisper. It’s almost drowned out by the gush of the water and Sam finally turns off the shower.

They make quick work of drying themselves. There’s still water dripping from Sam’s hair when he exits the bathroom, rivulets slithering down his neck and back and Dean catches up with him, wipes it away with a gentle hand that then curls lightly around Sam’s nape. Sam’s shiver has nothing to do with the cool room air on his damp skin.

It’s the first time that Dean initiates the kiss and it means so much more somehow. Sam sucks in air that’s not available, his hands coming up to cup his brother’s face on instinct. His pinkies dig in behind Dean’s ears and he kisses him for all that he’s worth, holds on with everything that he’s got because he is _so_ afraid that Dean is going to come to his senses in a minute or two.

Dean hums against his mouth, his arms around Sam’s waist and his own nails are pressing crescents into Sam’s sides, and the longer the kiss goes on, the less Sam feels like he’s got to keep a death grip on him.

They finally come apart for oxygen and Sam presses his nose into Dean’s cheek.

“Tell me you’re not fucking with me. Please, Dean, I can’t–” He swallows against a wave of emotions, his fingers shaking where they are resting against Dean’s collarbone. Sam can feel his brother’s pulse under the tips of his fingers.

Dean shakes his head, fast and instant. “No, god, Sammy, I would never–I’m so sorry, I’ve been so stupid. Such a coward.”

A startled laugh detaches itself from Sam, barely more than a gasp. “What else is new?”

“I’m really–This was just–” Dean cranes his head back a bit, looking right at Sam, “Was just a really close call this time, fucking hell.”

“I see,” Sam says and he can’t help the small smile spreading around his mouth, “You decided I couldn’t die before we ever got to second base, is that it?”

Dean shudders against him, his features set grimly. He slides his eyes closed but Sam doesn’t miss the pain in them before he does. He sneaks his arms around Dean’s waist and tugs him closer.

“Sorry. Bad joke.”

Dean shakes his head, dismissing it, and when he opens his eyes there’s a shine of something in them but he is smiling. He slides his hands along Sam’s arms, up to his shoulders and clasps his hands behind Sam’s neck, pulling him back down those few inches.

“Hate that you’re taller’n me,” he mutters against Sam’s mouth.

Lips stretching into a grin, Sam wraps his arms more tightly around Dean and straightens up against him, tugging him onto his tiptoes in an attempt to follow. He gives an undignified huff but holds on to Sam’s shoulders, lets Sam take most of his weight, trusting him to keep them both upright as he is balancing on his toes.

The warmth spreading, coiling, in Sam’s belly isn’t just arousal. As Dean kisses him of his own volition without being coaxed, his touches sure and full of intent, something hollow is being filled inside of Sam’s chest as if he hasn’t been whole this entire time.

Since he learned of the demon blood he’s been afraid he’d ever be able to feel like himself again. Not this dirty, impure, not-quite-human _being_. He’s been wondering if having this disease inside of him makes him part demon. He still doesn’t know the answer to that but right here and now, it doesn’t matter.

Because this is the best, the most like himself, he’s felt in two years. Actually, scratch that. It’s the most like himself he’s felt since he opened that Stanford acceptance letter.

That’s an awful long time to feel like you don’t belong, and somehow Sam managed to make it part of who he is, this sense of not-belonging. This is different. He finally knows what to do with his hands, how to move, and he doesn’t have to hold back anymore.

“Stop thinking.” Dean bites his lip and the sting of hurt sparks something in Sam.

He grabs Dean’s hips and pushes him back, toward the bed. “If you don’t want this, tell me now. Because I’m not sure I can go back.”

Dean looks up at him, fingers circling Sam’s wrists, and he’s smirking. “You think I’d be here, making out with you naked, if I didn’t want this?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says, “So far all you’ve done is keep me at arm’s length. And I’m not blaming you for that, I’m not mad or anything. I’m just … really confused right now.”

Dean turns his head to the side. He’s chewing his bottom lip and, in profile, perfect slope of his nose against the backdrop of the setting sun, he looks like he’s glowing.

“I know,” he says, “And I’m sorry, Sam. To be honest, I–I can’t promise you that I won’t freak out about this sooner or later. It’s just–I’ve denied myself this for so long and I’m–I’m really scared of what this is going to mean for us.”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Sam hurries to say, his palms stroking down from Dean’s shoulders, but then he corrects himself, “I mean, of course it means something. It means one hell of a lot. But it doesn’t have to _change_ anything.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Dean returns, voice low and a little unsteady. He brings his right hand up to Sam’s chest, sets it over where Sam’s heart is beating too fast against the inside of his ribcage.

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Just like we do everything else.” Sam reaches up to take Dean’s hand in his and press a kiss against his palm. A gesture so tender he is almost sure that Dean won’t allow it and pull away from him instead.

When he stays put and curls his fingers lightly around Sam’s cheek, Sam dips forward and kisses him again. There isn’t any hesitation in this one, either, Dean’s body melting completely against Sam’s hold on him, and it makes Sam bolder.

He pushes Dean back that last step until he can urge him down onto the mattress and Dean goes willingly. He hooks one arm around Sam’s neck and draws him down on top of himself, spreading his legs easily, almost casually, so Sam can settle in between them, and that in itself is enough to make striking heat pool low in Sam’s stomach. His cock, already mostly hard, slots up against the inside of Dean’s thighs, and he presses into the contact.

Dean quietly moans into the small space between their mouths, canting his own hips up.

“What do you want?” Sam asks, panting, against Dean’s chin, dragging his lips wetly along his jaw, suckling lightly at the skin. “Want to hear it from you.”

Dean’s fingers curl in the hair at the back of Sam’s head. “Jesus, Sam.”

He makes an aborted motion, his hand twitching downward as if his body has every intention to touch but his mind is stopping him.

“You can touch me,” Sam says, “You’re allowed now.”

He can hear Dean’s breath stutter, fingers flexing against Sam’s belly and then they slide down to loosely wrap around Sam’s cock, experimentally, but already so knowing as if this wasn’t their first time together. Sam doesn’t bother holding back any noises when Dean’s grip grows firmer, more assured of his ability with every slow stroke, and he groans against the side of Dean’s neck.

He flips them then, needs to clear his head, until Dean’s sitting astride his hips, bracing himself with his hands on Sam’s chest. His own hands grab Dean’s thighs, fingers flexing against firm muscle.

Dean chuckles, a sound low in his throat, and he sinks to his elbows to press his lips against Sam’s. He drags Sam’s lower lip into his mouth and sucks on it lightly with just a hint of his teeth scraping over the sensitive flesh, and Sam moans, grips him harder, grinds their dicks together between them.

It’s dry friction but so deliciously on the edge to uncomfortable, and languidness quickly turns to urgency.

“What do you want?” Sam asks again. He rolls his hips into his brother’s and Dean responds in kind. He settles his full weight on Sam and reaches between them, running his thumb over the tip of Sam’s cock in a tantalizing circle, smearing precum around. He brings the digit to his mouth and suckles at it.

“Christ,” Sam breathes, angling his hips up, and Dean grins down at him for a moment, entirely too pleased with himself. Then he reaches to the side for something on the bed that got buried under the blanket.

“What–” Sam starts when he spots the small container of lotion and then, “Did you nick that from the bathroom when I wasn’t looking?”

Dean’s lips are crinkling slightly, the way they do when he is trying very hard not to smirk. “I sure did.”

Sam wets his mouth, tongue flicking out over his bottom lip. “Is that what you want?”

Dean hums, head tilting to the side, and the sun’s gone down so the light in the room is soft now, but Sam can still see how his eyes are darkened with arousal.

“Sure is,” he says, sounding almost casual but his voice is rough and there’s an undertone to it that Sam can’t quite put his finger on. “You okay with that?”

“Hell,” Sam all but laughs, “Am I okay with that, he asks.”

Dean’s mouth curves into an all-out smile and Sam grins along with him.

“You know, I nearly started doubting we’d ever get here,” he says and it’s the truth.

“Here now, ain’t I?”

Sam sits up, rising up off the bed to wrap his arms around Dean, and Dean sinks lower into his lap, his cock hard and hot, leaving wetness across Sam’s abs. It draws a small gasp from both of them and Dean shudders slightly, his eyes fluttering shut as Sam dips forward and kisses down his neck.

He pauses to say, “Yeah, you are. And so am I,” bringing one hand up to angle Dean’s jaw in his direction so he can look at his face, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean shivers again, more violently this time, his hands practically clutching at Sam. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Jesus,” Sam breathes, “This really scared the shit out of you, didn’t it?”

He doesn’t get an answer but he didn’t expect one. He just kisses Dean again, patience and reassurance.

_We’re both here. I’m not letting go._

“We gonna do this today or what?” Dean urges, wiggling his hips against Sam, but it’s just a show. Sam doesn’t mind, he’s used to breaking through the walls Dean puts up around himself. He’s had practice.

He leans forward for another kiss, this one sweet and unhurried, exactly the opposite of what Dean wants but Sam doesn’t let himself be pushed, not by Dean’s prodding tongue and not by his hand that’s snug around both their dicks again. Sam can’t suppress a pleasant shiver, arousal a slow, hot curl around the bottom of his spine, but he keeps his lips soft against Dean’s and his touches gentle.

“Sammy,” Dean breathes and it sounds like a plea.

He’s pressing himself against Sam with need, genuine in his want, and that’s when Sam rolls them again, slotting himself low between Dean’s legs. He kisses down Dean’s sternum and around his navel to his groin, letting his hand briefly caress the hard length of Dean’s cock, followed by his mouth, and he gets a startled gasp from above for his efforts.

Dean’s smell surrounding him is so familiar and yet foreign and new at the same time. Soap and clean sweat but it’s headier, more intense.

He explores, takes his time. Cherishes the moment and the expanse of naked, sweat-coated skin underneath him. His touches are damn near worshipful, still not quite believing that this is real, that Dean is actually letting him do this. Dean’s fingers tighten and twist in his hair when he opens his mouth around the tip of Dean’s cock, letting it slip an inch or so into his mouth, and he presses his tongue against it, movements slow, tasting salty arousal.

Dean’s hand moves in his hair, to his cheek, cupping it lightly, and he can feel Dean’s thighs trembling under him.

“Sam.” A nudge against his shoulders with hot fingers, urging him, and Sam lifts his head, finds his brother staring back at him with a dark gaze and flushed cheeks.

On impulse, he presses a quick kiss to the inside of Dean’s thigh and to the curve of his hipbone, and Dean’s fingers curl against Sam’s neck, his thumb moving over the pulse point. Sam knows Dean can feel him swallow.

“Okay?” he rasps and it’s a loaded question because he doesn’t just mean right now.

_We’re going to be okay._

Dean’s staring at him but Sam holds his ground under the scrutiny. He tips his head to the side, against the inside of Dean’s knee, and meets his brother’s dark eyes.

He extends his hand, says, “Gimme,” and Dean wordlessly hands him the lotion.

Sitting up between Dean’s legs, nudging them a little further apart with his own knees, he unscrews the cap, keeps his voice carefully neutral when he asks, “You ever done this before?”

He rubs the sticky cream between his fingers and bends down to press a kiss right below Dean’s navel, his fingers inching their way in between the cheeks of Dean’s ass.

Dean’s reply is hoarse and breathy, “Not this way around.”

Warmth blossoms inside Sam, entirely too aware of Dean’s trust in him, the gift of vulnerability and honesty. Maybe it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but it is to Sam and he can feel the tremor of effort underneath Dean’s skin. Fight or flight.

Dean’s hips twitch away from Sam’s fingers when they find their mark but then he bears down, silently telling Sam it’s okay to keep going, and Sam sinks the first finger into him, softness and heat, hot, so hot inside. He can’t and doesn’t want to stop the small moan that comes, muffled by his own tongue kitten-licking over Dean’s quivering abdominals.

Dean makes a noise of his own, a broken thing, lips clamped shut against it, and Sam brushes his unoccupied hand up, teasing his fingers around Dean’s nipple, and it gets him another one of those sounds. Dean cants his hips up when Sam dares to add a second finger. More pressure, stretching wider, and Sam can feel it in the tight clamp around his two fingers.

It’s almost shameless how Dean’s hips are moving across the sheets, pushing into the foreign intrusion and Sam gently crooks his knuckles, twists until he can brush his fingertips against Dean’s prostate. Dean doesn’t bother to muffle the next groan that makes it out of him.

He is taking three of Sam’s fingers almost all the way inside now and Sam soothes, “That’s it,” against his skin, stroking half-circles with his thumb against Dean’s flank and Dean’s fingers tangle in his hair again. He tugs, lightly at first and a little harder when Sam doesn’t react.

It drags a startled laugh out of Sam. “Impatient, much?”

“Get on with it,” Dean huffs at him in his typical fashion. Bossy as ever, even with his legs spread around Sam’s hips, but it’s not like Sam would have it any other way.

He recognizes Dean’s gung-ho attitude for the nervousness it is.

“I don’t have a condom,” he warns because it’s important and Dean laughs suddenly, like a punch, says, “I’m good if you are,” and that settles that.

Sam’s own need has been a constant simmer, content with just touching Dean, but now it grows more insistent. It propels him forward, his hands pushing gently against Dean’s inner thighs, opening him wider to Sam’s hips, and he nearly empties the lotion completely, still afraid that it’s not going to be enough.

But Dean’s there, moving up against him, arching his back to take Sam in and in and deep, and it drives the breath from both their lungs. Sam keeps saying, “Look at me,” and Dean’s eyes are bright and wide and entirely focused on Sam. He keeps using his body to assure Sam’s he’s okay, muttering curses in turn with Sam’s name.

Sam doesn’t want to make it into a cliché but damned if he doesn’t feel the impulse to compose odes to Dean’s body right about now. Poetry could be written about the graceless beauty of the way Dean’s hips twist and turn on the sheets but Sam’s always been more of a prose guy and, besides, he’s a shitty writer. But he can feel it, feel it in the way Dean presses against him without doubt, no reluctance breaking his movements. He’s entirely there, entirely Sam’s, and Sam’s fingers slip across sweat-slick skin in his attempt at holding on.

Dean turns his palms up into Sam’s grip and their fingers interlace against the mattress on either side of Dean’s head. It’s a rush, Dean opening for him so completely, trusting Sam’s guidance without hesitation. Giving himself over to him like he does in nearly every other aspect of their lives, never keeping anything for himself.

Sam bends down and kisses him hard. Dean goes with it, pliant against him, and makes a noise of inquiry but Sam just shakes his head.

_Talk later._

He rolls his hips into Dean’s, his thrusts slow and agonizing, and Dean’s body is urging him to speed things up, writhing, meeting every one of his strokes, but Sam refuses to make this into anything fast and hectic. Dean’s breath is hitching with every thrust that drags over his prostate and Sam gathers up all the sounds Dean is making on his tongue, swallowing them, savoring.

It’s foreign and familiar, Dean’s scent all around him, a bit like an outer body experience. Sam isn’t sure he could let go if he wanted to. If he had to. Dean would make fun of him for it, sex as a spiritual experience, but that’s not it. It’s the climax of a long wait, it’s coming home, spring after a hard and cold winter.

He gathers Dean into his arms, as close as he can, and grinds his pelvis against the cheeks of Dean’s ass, sinking in as deep as he possibly can, and he can feel Dean’s cock straining against his abdomen. Dean mewls, turning his face into Sam’s sweaty neck and Sam fucks him like that, faster now but with the same care. There isn’t much room but he works a hand between them, flicks his thumb over the head of Dean’s dick, stroking down the shaft, slower than the thrusts of his hips.

Dean jolts against him. He gasps out, “Sam,” in warning and Sam breathes back, “Yes, come on,” and another twist of his hand and a changed angle of his hips make Dean bite out another curse. He throws his head back, his orgasm palpable to Sam, sticky-white heat smearing between them.

Sam groans, turns his mouth into Dean’s damp hair as he almost stills completely inside him while Dean shakes and flutters around him. It’s addictive, the sound and feel and smell of him, novel in a way Sam didn’t expect. He lets Dean lie back, head lolling on the pillows, and grips him around his thighs that are still trembling with aftershocks. He blinks up at Sam from half-lidded eyes, his hands settling loosely on Sam’s sides.

“Come on,” he says, voice raspy and breaking on a half-moan when Sam starts moving again.

Dean keeps reaching for him, panting, chanting his name, and the uncoordinated clench around Sam’s cock is what pushes him toward that sweet edge and over. He holds on to Dean’s hips, probably a little too hard, fingers pressing purple into pale skin, but Dean only keeps him close and kisses him with ferocity and something close to abandon while they both calm down.

Just breathing each other in.

Sam brings his fingers up to Dean’s jaw, ghosting along it, and the kiss gentles. He tilts his hips, flaccid cock slipping from Dean’s body and Dean gives a weak groan, his head falling back onto the pillow. Sam laughs quietly, placing another quick kiss in the corner of his mouth.

“Damn,” Dean breathes and it makes Sam laugh harder. He’s still breathless but it’s okay, it’s perfect.

“Yeah,” he agrees emphatically, dropping to the mattress beside his brother. “We need another shower.”

Dean hums, both agreement and reluctance.

_It can wait._

“You freaking out?” Sam asks. He angles his body to the side to face Dean who is still lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Dean hums again. “No. Not right now.”

“Good.”

“Might later, though.”

“That’s okay.” Sam smiles. “It is weird.”

Dean angles his head, his eyes focusing on Sam. “It is, isn’t it?”

“It’s also really amazing.”

Dean props himself up on his elbow and turns onto his side as well. His hand inches across the lack of space between them, knuckles bumping against Sam’s ribs.

“Yeah?” he asks quietly and it isn’t really a question but Sam smiles anyway, says, “Yeah.”

Sam isn’t sure why he didn’t see it coming, didn’t expect everything to go to shit in the end after all, because later, when it does, he thinks that he really should have. Because _a year_ , one fucking year, that’s all he gets, all they get, and it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But Dean is smiling at him, grinning like it’s the best damn day he’s ever had, and Sam feels the anger leave him.

They’re going to be all right, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the ending wasn't too abrupt. Thank y'all for reading! Feedback is much appreciated.


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